Glob Finder Laravel Package

Product Decisions This Supports

• Content Hierarchy Management: Enables glob-based retrieval of hierarchical content (e.g., CMS pages, documents) in Laravel applications using PHPCR/ODM, reducing reliance on manual path concatenation or custom queries. Ideal for projects with deeply nested content structures (e.g., intranets, digital asset management).
• Roadmap for PHPCR/ODM Adoption: Justifies investment in Doctrine PHPCR/ODM for Laravel projects requiring hierarchical data traversal, especially if the team is already using Symfony’s PHPCRBundle or similar ecosystems.
• Build vs. Buy: Avoids reinventing glob-pattern matching for hierarchical storage, leveraging a niche but functional open-source package (MIT license) to accelerate development. Reduces technical debt compared to custom solutions.
• Use Cases:
  • Content Management Systems (CMS): Fetch all draft articles under /cmf/articles/* without writing recursive queries.
  • Data Migration: Extract nested objects during transitions (e.g., "Find all deprecated nodes under /legacy/").
  • Audit/Compliance: Locate files/documents matching patterns (e.g., */2023/* for year-specific archives).
  • Dynamic Path Generation: Build flexible queries for user-facing features (e.g., "Show all subcategories of /products/electronics/*").

When to Consider This Package

• Adopt When:
  • Your Laravel application uses PHPCR/ODM (e.g., via doctrine/phpcr-bundle or dantleech/phpcr-odm) and requires glob-style path queries for hierarchical data.
  • You need a lightweight traversal solution for path-based discovery without the overhead of full-text search (e.g., Elasticsearch).
  • Hierarchical data structures (e.g., CMS pages, document repositories) require programmatic discovery beyond SQL-like queries.
  • The team is comfortable with PHP/Laravel + PHPCR and can handle niche dependencies.
• Look Elsewhere If:
  • You’re not using PHPCR/ODM: The package lacks support for other storage backends (e.g., Laravel’s filesystem, MongoDB, Elasticsearch). Alternatives:
    • Filesystem: Use Storage::glob() (non-recursive) or league/flysystem-glob for recursive globs.
    • SQL: Replace globs with LIKE or custom path queries (e.g., WHERE path LIKE '/path/%').
    • Elasticsearch: Use nested queries for hierarchical data.
  • You need complex filtering (e.g., metadata-based queries): Combine with PHPCR-ODM’s native queries or a dedicated search engine.
  • Performance is critical for large datasets: Glob traversal may be slower than indexed queries. Benchmark before use.
  • Your team lacks PHPCR expertise: The package assumes familiarity with Doctrine PHPCR/ODM, which has a steep learning curve.

How to Pitch It (Stakeholders)

For Executives: "This package lets us query hierarchical data—like CMS content or documents—using simple glob patterns (e.g., /articles/*), cutting development time for search and discovery features. It’s a lightweight, open-source solution tailored for PHPCR/ODM, which we’re already using for [specific use case, e.g., ‘content repository’]. For example, we could replace manual path concatenation in our migration scripts with a one-liner, improving maintainability and reducing bugs. The MIT license and niche focus (55 stars) signal reliability, though we’d need to confirm it fits our PHPCR setup and test performance for large hierarchies. The trade-off is minimal risk for a significant productivity boost in managing nested content."

For Engineering: *"Glob-finder provides a clean API to traverse PHPCR/ODM hierarchies with glob patterns (e.g., finder->find('/path/*')), reducing boilerplate for path-based queries. Key benefits:

• No reinvention: Handles edge cases (e.g., recursive globs) for PHPCR, saving weeks of development.
• Integration: Works seamlessly with existing PHPCR-ODM setups (e.g., Symfony/Doctrine in Laravel).
• Limitations:
  • PHPCR-only: Not usable for Laravel’s filesystem or SQL databases without significant refactoring.
  • Abandoned package: Last commit in 2016; we’d need to monitor for compatibility issues with newer PHPCR versions.
  • Performance: May struggle with very deep hierarchies (benchmark required). Proposal: Pilot it for [specific use case, e.g., ‘fetching all draft articles’] and compare against native PHPCR queries. If successful, adopt for other traversal needs. If not, fall back to custom glob logic or filesystem packages like flysystem-glob."*

For Product Managers: *"This package addresses a gap in our ability to programmatically discover hierarchical content without writing custom recursive queries. For example:

• Use Case 1: Content editors need to bulk-export all pages under /marketing/*. Currently, this requires manual path handling or a full-text search—glob-finder would simplify this to a single line of code.
• Use Case 2: During a data migration, we need to find all deprecated nodes under /legacy/. Glob patterns would make this faster and less error-prone than SQL LIKE queries. Risks: Limited to PHPCR/ODM, so we’d need to ensure this fits our tech stack. If not, we’d explore alternatives like filesystem globs or Elasticsearch for hierarchical data. The package is a quick win if PHPCR is already in use; otherwise, it’s a non-starter."*