NEON and YAML

NEON and YAML definitions are useful when you want file-based workflow configuration.

Side-by-Side Example

order.neon

order:
  table: Orders
  field: state
  states:
    pending:
      initial: true
    paid:
      color: '#00AA00'
    completed:
      final: true
  transitions:
    pay:
      from: [pending]
      to: paid
      happy: true
    complete:
      from: [paid]
      to: completed

order.yaml

order:
  table: Orders
  field: state
  states:
    pending:
      initial: true
    paid:
      color: '#00AA00'
    completed:
      final: true
  transitions:
    pay:
      from: [pending]
      to: paid
      happy: true
    complete:
      from: [paid]
      to: completed

Native PHP (no dependency)

You can also define a whole workflow in a single native-PHP file, no extra package required. Each file in the config path returns [$workflowName => [...]]:

<?php
return [
    'order' => [
        'table' => 'Orders',
        'field' => 'state',
        'states' => [
            'pending' => ['initial' => true],
            'paid' => ['final' => true, 'color' => '#00AA00'],
        ],
        'transitions' => [
            'pay' => ['from' => 'pending', 'to' => 'paid', 'happy' => true],
        ],
    ],
];

The PhpLoader is always active for the config path, so this works out of the box. The structure matches the NEON/YAML format below.

Optional parsers

PHP definitions need no parser package. NEON uses nette/neon and YAML uses symfony/yaml; install the selected parser through Installation.

Configure the Path

'Workflow' => [
    'loader' => [
        'configPath' => CONFIG . 'workflows' . DS,
    ],
],

Tradeoffs

Pros:

• easier to diff as data
• no PHP autoload concerns
• straightforward for ops-managed definitions

Cons:

• PHP callbacks still need code somewhere else
• less direct IDE refactoring support than attributes