Home / Section index

www.icosaedro.it

 PHPLint - Features

Main features of PHPLint

PHPLint is an analyzer of PHP sources that implements its own, independent scanner and parser. All the informations collected from the sources are also used to generate the documentation. PHPLint ensures these documents reflect the actual content of the sources from which they were derived. Among its main features:

• Supports both PHP 5 and PHP 7.
• Enforces safety through strong-typed data programming (more) and optional runtime checked typecast through the magic function cast(T,V) (more). No need to declare the type of every variable, as PHPLint obtains the correct type from the assignment:

  $imInt = 123;
  $imFloat = sin(1.0);
  $imString = "hello";
  $imArrayOfStrings = array("one", "two", "three");
  $imDateTime = new DateTime(...);
  $imMyClass = new MyClass();
  

• Reports PHP extension modules actually used, useful information for the final deployment of the application on the target system.
• Detects syntactic errors, unassigned/misspelled variables, unused items.

Usually programmers use the command line version of PHPLint, suitable to be included in scripts to be executed automatically. The distributed package also includes phplint.tk (phplint.tcl in the Windows version), a program that provides a practical graphical user interface to the numerous options of PHPLint. Click for a larger view.

• Performs flow analysis with detection of variables not definitely assigned and unreacheable code (more).
• Checks proper usage of the signature for functions and methods (more).
• Checks OOP inheritance and overriding rules, including signature and inherited exceptions (more).
• Class templates, also known as "generics" (more).
• Supports class autoloading (more).
• Supports checked and unchecked exceptions (more).
• Provides optional error mapping into exceptions (more).
• General enforcement of safety and security.
• Supports for phpDocumentor DocBlocks (more).
• Generates HTML documentation from the sources.

...and much more. Please read the tutorial to learn more about how PHPLint works and can be used, and try the examples with the PHPLint on-line interface to PHPLint and experiment there with your code. The reference manual is the definitive guide to PHPLint.

Features of PHP that are missing in PHPLint

• Variable complex syntax: ${a}.
• Closured, also known as anonymous functions.
• Traits.
• Generators.
• Variable-variables $$v, variable functions $f(), variable classes new $classname(), variable methods $obj->$methodname().
• Binary numbers 0b1110101.
• Alternative syntax for control structures, that is endif endwhile endfor etc.
• Labels of the case branches must be static expressions.
• goto.
• list(...) is not supported. You may replace list($x,$y)=f() with normal arrays like in $a=f(); $x=$a[0]; $y=$a[1]; or you may use pass-by-reference parameters like in function f(/*. return int .*/ & $x,/*. return int .*/ & $y){...}.
• include* and require* are statements under PHPLint, so external packages cannot return values though these statements and cannot contain the return statement at global scope.

callable enddeclare endfor endforeach endif endswitch endwhile goto insteadof trait yield

The __TRAIT__ magic constant is not implemented (it is undefined).

There is no plan to implement the features above.

Still no comments to this page. Use the Comments link above to add your contribute.