Horde Autoloader - How to use?

I am new to autoloading in PHP and have a requirement for Horde_Text_Diff in my latest project. I am using Horde_Autoloader to autoload the required files, however, I am not using it correctly. As far as I can Google, there is not a single example of how to actually do it that exists on the internet. I pretty much learn 100% from example and so I have hit a roadblock here.

This is what I have so far ...

require_once( Horder/Autoloader.php );
$autoloader = new Horde_Autoloader();

No problem so far, the object is created ...

$text_diff = $autoloader->loadClass( 'Hoard_Text_Diff' );

This is not working as I am purely guessing here.

What lead me to where I am was this post.

Solution

I've looked at the source code at https://github.com/dereuromark/tools/tree/master/Vendor/Horde.

The Horde_Autoloader does not have a mapper attached and you're using it wrong. The autoloader needs a classPathMapper added. There are different classPathMappers in the Horde / Autoloader / ClassPathMapper directory.

require_once 'Horde/Autoloader.php';
require_once 'Horde/Autoloader/ClassPathMapper.php';
require_once 'Horde/Autoloader/ClassPathMapper/Default.php';

$autoloader = new Horde_Autoloader();
$autoloader->addClassPathMapper(new Horde_Autoloader_ClassPathMapper_Default(__DIR__.'PATH_TO_HORDE_FOLDER'));
$autoloader->registerAutoloader();

// if path is correct autoloader should work
$diff = new Horde_Text_Diff();

There is also a default autoloader which registers all paths from your include_path automatically. This can be a little overhead!

// set the current path to your include_path
set_include_path(__DIR__.'PATH_TO_HORDE_FOLDER');

// if you require the default autoloader it will get initialized automatically
require_once 'Horde/Autoloader/Default.php';

// use the lib
$diff = new Horde_Text_Diff();

EDIT:

It works for me. The following code is in C:\xampp\htdocs\horde\index.php. The horde lib is in subfolder lib.

// this file:
// C:\xampp\htdocs\horde\index.php

// horde folder structure
// C:\xampp\htdocs\horde\lib\Horde\Autoloader
// C:\xampp\htdocs\horde\lib\Horde\Text

require_once __DIR__.'/lib/Horde/Autoloader.php';
require_once __DIR__.'/lib/Horde/Autoloader/ClassPathMapper.php';
require_once __DIR__.'/lib/Horde/Autoloader/ClassPathMapper/Default.php';

$autoloader = new Horde_Autoloader();
$autoloader->addClassPathMapper(new Horde_Autoloader_ClassPathMapper_Default(__DIR__.'/lib'));
$autoloader->registerAutoloader();

$compare = array(
    array(
        'foo',
        'bar',
        'foobar'
    ),
    array(
        'foo',
        'bar',
        'foobaz'
    ),
);

$diff = new Horde_Text_Diff('auto', $compare);

echo '<pre>';
print_r($diff->getDiff());
echo '</pre>';