If you haven't before, someday you will be hitting the error Class xxx does not exist in yyy. You know that class exists tho!
The issue is likely related to case-sensitive file systems on Linux servers.
Case-Insensitive In Development
If you're a Mac or Windows user, chances are good that the filesystem you're using right now is not case-sensitive.
If that's the case, then these two commands are functionally equivalent:
# This:
cat ~/Sites/my-site/config/app.php
# Is equivalent to this:
cat ~/SiTEs/mY-SIte/conFIG/aPP.PhP
Laravel (and PHP in general) uses auto-loading to discover and load classes as they are requested in our code.
On case-insensitive file systems, you can mix the cases up and it will still work:
# This:
$someObject = new \App\Foo\Bar\SomeObject;
# Is equivalent to this:
$someObject = new \aPP\fOo\BaR\SOMEObject;
This is, actually, sort of a problem!
Case-Sensitive Everywhere Else
While most of us are hacking away on Windows/Mac computers, we generally host (and test!) our applications on Linux systems. Linux-based systems almost always uses case-sensitive file systems. This means our capitalization has to line up!
# ERROR ERROR
# This works for file `app/Foo/Bar/SomeObject`
# (assuming autoloading is configured to look in directory
# "app" for the App namespace)
$someObject = new \App\Foo\Bar\SomeObject;
# This will not work, as file `aPP\fOo\BaR\SOMEObject.php`
# won't exist on case-sensitive file systems
$someObject = new \aPP\fOo\BaR\SOMEObject;
Case-Sensitivity in Chipper CI
Chipper's build environment is in Linux, and is therefore case-sensitive.
If you hit this issue, you'll often presents itself as an error like this: Class "App\Foo\BarBazThing" not found.
So, if you see an error like that - you're likely referencing a file using the wrong case!
The error usually comes along with a stack trace, so you can track down what file is being used. However, tools such as silverseacher or ripgrep can be used to find content in code files using case-sensitive searches!
# Search for string FOOBazThing
# in our code base using "silversearcher"
ag FOOBazThing
# Or use ripgrep instead:
rg FOOBazThing
These are excellent tools to have installed on your dev machine - they are often faster and better than IDE-based tools at finding specific strings in your code base. As a bonus, they honor .gitignore and can also be modified to ignore huge files such as compiled javascript.