How do I load modules from both /site/modules/ and /site/modules-2/?

[Jonathan Lahijani]

ProcessWire's default folder for site modules is /site/modules/.

I want to have a separate folder called /site/modules-2/ where additional modules are available.  I believe this is technically supported however I haven't seen any discussion on it.

I tried doing this in /site/init.php:

// init.php
wire('modules')->loader->loadPath(__DIR__ . '/modules-2/');

That finds the additional modules when I refresh the admin modules page and allows me to install a module in that folder.  However after installing it, it technically becomes immediately uninstalled.  I can't uninstall the module at that point, but if I try to reinstall it, I get an integrity constraint violation.  So I have to remove the bit of code above.  Then if I refresh admin modules again, it becomes missing (correctly) where I can then remove it.

Doing it over again leads to the same result.

I feel like while having multiple module holder folders is possible, it's either buggy in ProcessWire, or my approach is incorrect.  Any suggestions?

[Jan Romero]

Does wire('modules')->addPath('/site/modules-2/') work?

[Jonathan Lahijani]

3 hours ago, Jan Romero said:

Does wire('modules')->addPath('/site/modules-2/') work?

@Jan Romero Thanks for making me aware of that method.  I tried it and used the full path, but it didn't seem to work.  I tried it in /site/init.php and /site/ready.php and other status files, but no luck.  I traced the code to see where it executes, and from what I can tell, it seems that path will not get added in time, which is a little surprising.  But maybe I haven't totally thought it through?

Since this is kind of a rare thing I'm trying to do, I wonder if it's technically supported.

[Jan Romero]

I feel like it should be supported, since PW itself uses two modules directories, core and site, and they’re not hardcoded. When ProcessWire instantiates itself, it calls addPath() for /site/modules/ here (the core modules path is added in Modules::__construct):

// from ProcessWire::load(Config $config)
$modules = $this->wire('modules', new Modules($config->paths->modules), true);
$modules->addPath($config->paths->siteModules);
$modules->setSubstitutes($config->substituteModules); 
$modules->init();

https://github.com/processwire/processwire/blob/3cc76cc886a49313b4bfb9a1a904bd88d11b7cb7/wire/core/ProcessWire.php#L557

The problem is that addPath() needs to be called between the instantiation of Modules and the init() call and there’s no way for us to get in there. Unfortunately there don’t appear to be any hookable methods during this process (I don’t think hooks can be attached before this point anyway?).

But I think you can get away with just adding your path after the fact and calling Modules::refresh():

// seems to work in init.php
wire('modules')->addPath(__DIR__ . '/modules-2/');
wire('modules')->refresh();

Of course this adds a lot of unnecessary cost to every request, because it basically loads all modules again. And I don’t think it’ll work for preload modules.

If this is important to you maybe ask Ryan to make this a config setting? ProcessWire already uses an array for module directories, only the assumption that the first two entries are core/modules and site/modules seems to be baked in.

Edited 15 hours ago by Jan Romero

[Jonathan Lahijani]

@Jan Romero Thanks for your research.  Your approach worked but yea it's not efficient as you say.  I created a feature request:

https://github.com/processwire/processwire-requests/issues/550