google-natural-language-php

An unofficial, fully unit tested Google Natural Language PHP client with extra sugar.

Why not just use the official one?

The official one is great, and we actually use it in this package, it just doesn't quite have the sort of features we needed, so we wrapped it up with some extra bits.

What extra features?

Cost Cutters

The Google Natural Language API costs money. If you're doing anything with it at scale, you're going to have to keep an eye on your calls to make sure things aren't running away with you. I learnt this the hard way. It can get expensive.

That's why we introduced some cost cutting features.

Caching Requests

By default this package caches your requests, something you would have to usually do yourself.

It caches using a framework-agnostic approach, whereby it leverages any host frameworks caching mechanism, and falls back to a temporary cache if there is no cache available.

The supported frameworks are detailed in the AnyCache project.

Examples include Laravel, Symfony, Doctrine, Psr6 and more.

This feature is on by default and can easily be disabled.

Cheapskate Mode

While not immediately clear, the Google Natural Language API charges per 1000 characters.

We've added "cheapskate mode" that, if set, automatically truncates the desired text, saving you another credit.

This feature is on by default and can easily be disabled.

Conveniences

There are a few other conveniences like being able to set the type, language, encoding etc.

One use case would be running a single instance of text through multiple language attempts.

Usage

use DarrynTen\GoogleNaturalLanguagePhp\GoogleNaturalLanguage;

// Config options
$config = [
  'projectId' => 'my-awesome-project'  // At the very least
];

// Make a processor
$language = new GoogleNaturalLanguage($config);

// Set text
$text = 'Google Natural Language processing is awesome!';
$language->setText($text);

// Get stuff
$language->getEntities();
$language->getSyntax();
$language->getSentiment();

// Get all stuff
$language->getAll();

// Set optional things
$language->setType('HTML');
$language->setLanguage('en');
$language->setEncodingType('UTF16');

// Extra features
$language->setCaching(false);
$language->setCheapskate(false);

// Full config options
$config = [
  'projectId' => 'my-awesome-project',     // required
  'authCache' => \CacheItemPoolInterface,  // stores access tokens
  'authCacheOptions' => $array,            // cache config
  'authHttpHandler' => callable(),         // psr-7 auth handler
  'httpHandler' => callable(),             // psr-7 rest handler
  'keyFile' => $json,                      // content
  'keyFilePath' => $string,                // path
  'retries' => 3,                          // default is 3
  'scopes' => $array,                      // app scopes
  'cache' => $boolean,                     // cache
  'cheapskate' => $boolean                 // limit text to 1000 chars
];

// authCache, authCacheOptions, authHttpHandler and httpHandler are not
// currently implemented.

See The Google Cloud Docs for more on these options and their usage.

Options

• setType($type) - Either PLAIN_TEXT (default) or HTML
• setEncodingType($type) - Either UTF8 (default) UTF16, UTF32 or NONE
• setLanguage($language) - Either ISO (en, es) or BCP-47 (en-ZA, en-GB).

If no language is provided then it is autodetected from the text and is returned with the response.

Missing Features

Feel free to open a PR!

Usage of Google\Cloud\Storage\StorageObject is presently not possible.

• Custom authCache and authCacheOptions
• Custom httpHandler and authHttpHandler

Entity Sentiment

You can retrieve the sentiment of some text

$instance = new GoogleNaturalLanguage($config);
$instance->setText('A duck and a cat in a field at night');
$sentiment = $instance->getEntitySentiment();

Roadmap

• - Get Entities of Type - Will allow the ability to retrieve, for example, only the People, or only the Locations
• - Sentiment shortcuts (is positive etc)
• - Check for types, has location etc
• - And more!

Acknowledgements

• Dmitry Semenov for being such a legend.

• Bradley Weston for coming out of nowhere.

• blaisedufrain for the sentiment analysis.

• Open a PR and put yourself here :)