How to access Google Cloud datastore with php?

Question

I am using Google app engine for my web app and I need to use a NoSQL database, so my best option is Google Cloud Datastore

Since I can't find a way to connect it with php I can't use it. In the official documentation php is not mentioned. I want to make sure that is there a way to access it with php ?

Answer 1

First, install the official Google Cloud Datastore PHP API using Composer (a dependency manager). You can do this by adding "google/cloud-datastore": "^1.0" to the 'require' section of your composer.json and running composer update

You can start the local Datastore emulator with the command:

gcloud beta emulators datastore start

Here's a helper class I wrote that handles connecting to the datastore:

<?php
// Datastore.php
use Google\Cloud\Datastore\DatastoreClient;

class Datastore {
    private static $ds;

    /**
     * Creates or returns the Datastore instance
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public static function getOrCreate() {
        if (isset(Datastore::$ds)) return Datastore::$ds;

        // gcloud beta emulators datastore start --data-dir=_datastore
        if (Datastore::isDevEnv() == true) {
            putenv('DATASTORE_EMULATOR_HOST=http://localhost:8081');
            // To run locally, you may still need to download a credentials file from console.cloud.google.com
            //putenv('GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=' . __DIR__ . '/datastore_creds.json');            
        }

        $datastore = new DatastoreClient([
            'projectId' => Core::getProjectId()  
            // 'keyFilePath' => 'datastore_creds.json'
        ]);

        Datastore::$ds = $datastore;
        return Datastore::$ds;
    }

    /**
     * Returns true if server running in development environment.
     *
     * @return boolean
     */
    static function isDevEnv() {
        if (isset(Core::$_isDevEnv)) return Core::$_isDevEnv;
        Core::$_isDevEnv = (strpos(getenv('SERVER_SOFTWARE'), 'Development') === 0);
        return Core::$_isDevEnv;
    }

    /**
     * Formats fields and indexes for datastore.
     * @param Datastore $ds
     * @param Key $entityKey Datastore key.
     * @param [] $fields
     * @param [string] $indexes Keys to index.
     * @return Entity
     */
    static function entityWithIndexes(DatastoreClient $ds, $entityKey, $fields, $indexes = []) {
        // Create exclude from indexes array.
        $excludedIndexes = [];
        foreach ($fields as $key => $value) {
            if (in_array($key, $indexes) == false) {
                $excludedIndexes[] = $key;
            }
        }

        $entity = $ds->entity($entityKey, $fields, [
            'excludeFromIndexes' => $excludedIndexes
        ]);
        return $entity;
    }
}

Here's how you would use it to insert a new entity into the datastore

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
require 'Datastore.php';    
$ds = Datastore::getOrCreate();
$key = $ds->key('MyEntityType');
$data = [
      'name' => 'Foo!'
];
$indexes = ['name'];
$entity = Datastore::entityWithIndexes($ds, $key, $data, $indexes);
$ds->insert($entity);

If you run into issues with the emulator, try deploying your code to App Engine and seeing if you have the same error. The local development environment can be flaky.

Also, check out the official PHP Datastore API docs here.

Answer 2

Accessing Google Cloud Datastore from PHP is not documented, but you should be able to use Google APIs Client Library for PHP like any other Google APIs.

Answer 3

https://gae-php-tips.appspot.com/2013/12/24/getting-started-with-the-cloud-datastore-on-php-app-engine-part-ii/

A good starter primer for php access to datastore

Answer 4

This library may help people finding this thread

Designed to make Google Datatore easy from PHP.

https://github.com/tomwalder/php-gds

Answer 5

Include google/cloud-datastore library via composer

$ composer require google/cloud-datastore

and you can use as Example below.

<?php 
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use Google\Cloud\Datastore\DatastoreClient;

$datastore = new DatastoreClient([
    'projectId' => 'my_project'
]);

// Create an entity
$bob = $datastore->entity('Person');
$bob['firstName'] = 'Bob';
$bob['email'] = '[e-mail]';
$datastore->insert($bob);

// Update the entity
$bob['email'] = '[e-mail]';
$datastore->update($bob);

// If you know the ID of the entity, you can look it up
$key = $datastore->key('Person', '12345328897844');
$entity = $datastore->lookup($key);

More details: https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/google-cloud-php#google-cloud-datastore-ga