Building & Distribution

PHPolygon compiles game projects into standalone executables with an embedded PHP runtime.

Quick Start

php -d phar.readonly=0 vendor/bin/phpolygon build                # auto-detect platform
php -d phar.readonly=0 vendor/bin/phpolygon build macos-arm64     # specific target
php -d phar.readonly=0 vendor/bin/phpolygon build all              # all platforms
php vendor/bin/phpolygon build --dry-run                           # show config only

Build Pipeline

The build system runs a 7-phase pipeline:

1. Vendor - composer update --no-dev (restored after build)
2. Stage - copy src/, vendor/, assets/, resources/ into temp dir
3. PHAR - create game.phar with custom stub
4. micro.sfx - resolve static PHP binary (cache or download)
5. Combine - concatenate micro.sfx + game.phar into single executable
6. Package - platform-specific: macOS .app bundle, Linux/Windows directory
7. Report - file sizes and build summary

Configuration

Create build.json in your game project root:

{
  "name": "MyGame",
  "identifier": "com.studio.mygame",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "entry": "game.php",
  "run": "\\App\\Game::start();",
  "php": { "extensions": ["glfw", "mbstring", "zip", "phar"] },
  "phar": { "exclude": ["**/tests", "**/docs"] },
  "resources": { "external": ["resources/audio"] },
  "platforms": {
    "macos": { "icon": "icon.icns", "minimumVersion": "12.0" }
  }
}

Output Structure

build/
├── MyGame.app/           ← macOS bundle
│   └── Contents/
│       ├── MacOS/
│       │   └── MyGame    ← executable (micro.sfx + game.phar)
│       ├── Resources/
│       │   ├── assets/
│       │   ├── resources/
│       │   └── saves/
│       └── Info.plist
├── linux/                ← Linux AppImage
└── windows/              ← Windows directory

PHAR Stub Constants

Available at runtime inside the built game:

Constant	Purpose
PHPOLYGON_PATH_ROOT	Resource base directory
PHPOLYGON_PATH_ASSETS	Extracted assets
PHPOLYGON_PATH_RESOURCES	Shaders, fonts
PHPOLYGON_PATH_SAVES	User save data
PHPOLYGON_PATH_MODS	Mod directory