PHP SDK (Legacy)
Last updated: Sep-02-2024
This legacy SDK has reached its end of life. We no longer release new features for this version of the SDK. Support will still be available until further notice.
For documentation on the current version click here. See the PHP SDK migration guide for more information on migrating to the current version of the PHP SDK.
Overview
Cloudinary's PHP SDK provides simple, yet comprehensive image and video upload, transformation, optimization, and delivery capabilities that you can implement using code that integrates seamlessly with your existing PHP application.
For details on all features and fixes, see the CHANGELOG.
The library is based on generic code that can be used with PHP frameworks such as Yii
, CodeIgniter
, CakePHP
, Zend
, Symfony
and others.
Quick example: Transformations
Take a look at the following transformation code and the image it delivers:
![sample transformation sample transformation](https://res.cloudinary.com/demo/image/upload/c_thumb,g_face,h_150,w_150/r_20/e_sepia/l_cloudinary_icon/e_brightness:90/o_60/c_scale,w_50/fl_layer_apply,g_south_east,x_5,y_5/a_10/front_face.png)
This relatively simple code performs all of the following on the original front_face.jpg image before delivering it:
- Crop to a 150x150 thumbnail using face-detection gravity to automatically determine the location for the crop
- Round the corners with a 20 pixel radius
- Apply a sepia effect
- Overlay the Cloudinary logo on the southeast corner of the image (with a slight offset). The logo is scaled down to a 50 pixel width, with increased brightness and partial transparency (opacity = 60%)
- Rotate the resulting image (including the overlay) by 10 degrees
- Convert and deliver the image in PNG format (the originally uploaded image was a JPG)
And here's the URL that would be included in the image tag that's automatically generated from the above code:
In a similar way, you can transform a video.
- See all possible transformations in the Transformation URL API reference.
- See more examples of image and video transformations using the
cloudinary_php v1.x
library.
Quick example: File upload
The following PHP code uploads the dog.mp4
video to the specified sub-folder using the public_id, my_dog
. The video will overwrite the existing my_dog
video if it exists. When the video upload is complete, the specified notification URL will receive details about the uploaded media asset.
PHP library features
- Build URLs for image and video transformations
- PHP view helper tags for embedding and transforming images
- API wrappers: file upload, administration, sprite generation and more
- Server-side file upload + direct unsigned file upload from the browser using the jQuery plugin
Installation
Composer installation
Use Composer
to manage your PHP library dependency, and install Cloudinary's PHP library directly from the Packagist repository.
-
Update your
composer.json
file as follows: -
Automatically install dependencies including Cloudinary's PHP package:
Manual installation
Although Composer is the recommended method for installing the PHP library, if necessary you can also manually install the library as follows:
- Download the latest sources from:
https://github.com/cloudinary/cloudinary_php/archive/support/1.x.zip. -
Copy the
src
folder and theautoload.php
file into your PHP project and then include Cloudinary's PHP classes in your code:
Configuration
To use the Cloudinary PHP library, you have to configure at least your cloud_name
. An api_key
and api_secret
are also needed for secure API calls to Cloudinary (e.g., image and video uploads). You can find your product environment configuration credentials in the API Keys page of the Cloudinary Console.
In addition to the required configuration parameters, you can define a number of optional configuration parameters if relevant.
Setting the configuration parameters can be done globally, using either an environment variable or the config
method, or programmatically in each call to a Cloudinary method. Parameters set in a call to a Cloudinary method override globally set parameters.
secure
configuration parameter is false
. However, for most modern applications, it's recommended to configure the secure
parameter to true
to ensure that your transformation URLs are always generated as HTTPS.Setting the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable
You can configure the required cloud_name
, api_key
, and api_secret
by defining the CLOUDINARY_URL environment variable. Copy the API environment variable format from the API Keys page of the Cloudinary Console Settings. Replace <your_api_key>
and <your_api_secret>
with your actual values, while your cloud name is already correctly included in the format. When using Cloudinary through a PaaS add-on (e.g., Heroku or AppFog), this environment variable is automatically defined in your deployment environment. For example:
Append additional configuration parameters, for example upload_prefix
and secure_distribution
, to the environment variable:
Setting parameters globally
Here's an example of setting configuration parameters globally in your PHP application:
PHP capitalization and data type guidelines
When using the PHP SDK, keep these guidelines in mind:
- Parameter names:
snake_case
. For example: public_id - Classes:
PascalCase
. For example: CloudinaryField - Methods:
snake_case
. For example: cl_image_upload_tag - Pass parameter data as:
array
Sample projects
For additional useful code samples and to learn how to integrate Cloudinary with your PHP applications, take a look at our Sample Projects.
- Basic PHP sample: Uploading local and remote images to Cloudinary and generating various transformation URLs.
- PHP Photo Album: A fully working web application that allows you to upload photos, maintain a database with references, list images with their metadata, and display them using various cloud-based transformations. Image uploading is performed both from the server side and directly from the browser using a jQuery plugin.
- Learn more about uploading images and videos using the PHP SDK.
- See examples of powerful image and video transformations using PHP code
and see our image transformations and video transformation docs.
- Check out Cloudinary's asset management capabilities, for example, renaming and deleting assets, adding tags and metadata to assets, and searching for assets.
- Stay tuned for updates with the Programmable Media Release Notes and the Cloudinary Blog.