---
layout: post
title: Getting Started
sections:
    What is Container?: what-is-container
    Key Features: key-features
    Questions?: questions
    Installation: installation
---
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## What is Container?

Container is a small but powerful dependency injection container that allows you to decouple components in your application in order to write clean and testable code.

[Container on Packagist](https://packagist.org/packages/league/container)

## Key Features

- Interoperability. Container is an implementation of the [container-interop](https://github.com/container-interop/container-interop) project.
- Speed. Because Container is small, it is also very fast.
- Service Providers allow you to package code or configuration for packages that you reuse regularly.
- Inflectors allow you to manipulate objects resolved through the container based on the type.
- Delegate containers allow you to register back up containers to resolve services when they are not provided by this container.
- Extensible. Container is modular so if you need to change or extend functionality it is very easy to do so.

## Questions?

Container was created by Phil Bennett. Find him on Twitter at [@philipobenito](https://twitter.com/philipobenito).

## Installation

### System Requirements

You need **PHP >= 5.4.0** to use `League\Container` but the latest stable version of PHP is recommended.

### Composer

Container is available on [Packagist](https://packagist.org/packages/league/container) and can be installed using [Composer](https://getcomposer.org/):

~~~
composer require league/container
~~~

Most modern frameworks will include Composer out of the box, but ensure the following file is included:

~~~ php
<?php

// include the Composer autoloader
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
~~~

### Going Solo

You can also use Container without using Composer by registering an autoloader function:

~~~ php
spl_autoload_register(function ($class) {
    $prefix = 'League\\Container\\';
    $base_dir = __DIR__ . '/src/';
    $len = strlen($prefix);
    if (strncmp($prefix, $class, $len) !== 0) {
        // no, move to the next registered autoloader
        return;
    }
    $relative_class = substr($class, $len);
    $file = $base_dir . str_replace('\\', '/', $relative_class) . '.php';
    if (file_exists($file)) {
        require $file;
    }
});
~~~

Or, use any other [PSR-4](http://www.php-fig.org/psr/psr-4/) compatible autoloader.