Start a New Zend Framework 2 Project

XAMPP makes it easy to start developing with PHP, and Zend Framework 2 is one of the most popular PHP development frameworks. This guide walks you through the process of initializing a new Zend Framework 2 project with XAMPP.

This guide uses the command-line git client for Linux. If you don’t already have this, you can install it easily by running the command sudo apt-get install git or sudo yum install git from your Linux terminal. It also assumes that the new Zend Framework 2 application will be accessible at the URL http://localhost/myapp/.

Follow these steps:

Open a new Linux terminal and ensure you are logged in as root.
Within your XAMPP installation directory (usually /opt/lampp), create a new directory named apps/ (if it doesn’t already exist). Then, within this new apps/ directory, create a directory to hold your Zend Framework 2 application and its related XAMPP configuration files. In this case, call the directory myapp/.
```
cd /opt/lampp
mkdir apps
mkdir apps/myapp
```
Clone the Zend Framework 2 sample application repository to the myapp/ directory using git.
```
cd /opt/lampp/apps/myapp
git clone git://github.com/zendframework/ZendSkeletonApplication.git
```
This will produce a ZendSkeletonApplication/ subdirectory in the myapp/ directory. Rename this newly-created subdirectory to htdocs.
```
cd /opt/lampp/apps/myapp/
mv ZendSkeletonApplication htdocs
```
This will be the main working directory for your Zend Framework 2 project.
Change to the myapp/htdocs/ directory and run the following commands to update Composer (the PHP dependency manager) and install the Zend Framework 2 components.
```
cd /opt/lampp/apps/myapp/htdocs
/opt/lampp/bin/php composer.phar self-update
/opt/lampp/bin/php composer.phar install
```
In case you encounter SSL errors when running the above commands, use the following command to let PHP know where to find your system’s SSL certificates, then try again.
```
export SSL_CERT_DIR=/etc/ssl/certs
```
Here’s an example of what you might see as Composer downloads and installs dependencies.

Next, within the myapp/ directory, create a new conf/ subdirectory.

cd /opt/lampp/apps/myapp
mkdir conf

Within the new conf/ subdirectory, use your text editor to create and populate a file named httpd-prefix.conf with the following content:

Alias /myapp/ "/opt/lampp/apps/myapp/htdocs/public/"
Alias /myapp "/opt/lampp/apps/myapp/htdocs/public"
Include "/opt/lampp/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-app.conf"

Within the conf/ subdirectory, also create and populate a file named httpd-app.conf with the following content:

<Directory /opt/lampp/apps/myapp/htdocs/public>
   Options +FollowSymLinks
   AllowOverride All
   Require all granted
</Directory>

Edit the httpd-xampp.conf file in the etc/extra/ subdirectory of your XAMPP installation directory and add the following line at the end to include the httpd-prefix.conf created earlier.
```
Include "/opt/lampp/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-prefix.conf"
```
Remember to update the above file and directory paths so that they’re valid for your system.
Check that you have a directory structure like this:
Restart the Apache server using the XAMPP control panel.
You should now be able to access the Zend Framework 2 skeleton application by browsing to http://localhost/myapp. Here is an example of the default welcome page you should see:

You can now begin developing your Zend Framework 2 application by modifying the skeleton application code. For more information, refer to the Zend Framework 2 User Guide.

Documentation

Start a New Zend Framework 2 Project