How PHP Coding Standard Tools Actually Work

2017-07-31

Why should these 3 pillars be even important for you? When I understood tools behind them and their basic principals, I was able to more effective Sniffs and Fixers (Checkers further on) that were clear to their communities.

Write 1 Checker, Save Hundreds Hours of Work

Coding Standards are my greatest passion for last couple of years. I love their efficiency: with one rule (class) you can improve thousands of lines in your code in matters of milliseconds. And not only yours if you share it in a package.

With a Checker you can change array() to []. And more then that. Coding Standard are not exclusively about spaces, tabs and brackets nowadays.

You can use them to refactor to newer version of your framework, upgrade your codebase to newer PHP or add PHP 7.1 typehints to your methods.

That's laziness on a completely different level :)

So Much for The Hype

A lot is possible to do with these tools and I'll write about that in the future, but today we'll start with a much smaller step: a Checker that will inform us about coding standard violation. No changes, no refactoring.

To know how to build a Checker you need to understand 3 terms: token, dispatcher and subscriber.

I'll explain them one by one.

1. Token

We see PHP as:

<?php echo "hi";

Coding Standard tools see it in tokens:

$phpCodeInTokens = token_get_all('<?php echo "hi";');
var_dump($phpCodeInTokens);

array(5) {
  [0]=>
      array(3) {
        [0]=>
        int(379) # token id
        [1]=>
        string(6) "<?php " # token content
        [2]=>
        int(1)
      }
  [1]=>
      array(3) {
        [0]=>
        int(328) # token id
        [1]=>
        string(4) "echo" # token content
        [2]=>
        int(1)
      }
  [2]=>
      array(3) {
        [0]=>
        int(382) # token id
        [1]=>
        string(1) " " # token content
        [2]=>
        int(1)
      }
  [3]=>
      array(3) {
        [0]=>
        int(323) # token id
        [1]=>
        string(4) ""hi"" # token # content
        [2]=>
        int(1)
  }
  [4]=>
      string(1) ";"
}

Don't worry, this is not a content we need to work with. It will be converted to arrays or objects like these:

$token = [
    'type' => 328, # token id stated by PHP, you can use also more readable constant: T_ECHO (with value 328)
    'content' => 'echo'
];

Now you know what "token" is.

2. Dispatcher

Do you know Event Dispatcher?

If not, it's a pattern (like repository or factory) that says: when this action happens, call all methods that listen to it, e.g. when order is finished (event), send confirmation SMS to user and send him thank-you box full of candies (subscribed methods).

$dispatcher->dispatch('order_finished');

For Coding Standard tools it works the same but with different naming:

• Event <=> Token
• Subscriber <=> Checker

Almost there.

3. Subscriber

You already know that subscriber is a Checker. Checker is a class that waits for a specific token.

In pseudo code:

class Checker
{
    public function subscribeToToken()
    {
        return T_ECHO; // number for "echo" by PHP
    }

    public function someMethodThatWillBeCalled(array $token)
    {
        if ($token['content'] !== 'echo') {
            // mallformed echo, probably "ECHO", "eCHO" etc.
        }
    }
}

Internally Coding Standard tools dispatch all tokens found in specific file:

$tokens = $this->getAllTokens(file_get_contents($file));
foreach ($tokens as $token) {
    $codingStandardTool->dispatch($token['type']);
}

When the dispatcher gets a token with type T_ECHO (= 328) it will call Checker::someMethodThatWillBeCalled() method.

I think now you are ready for the real code.

Do You Want Real Code?

I already wrote how to write a Sniff for PHP_CodeSniffer or how to write a Fixer for PHP CS Fixer on this topic where I write code to solve real life use cases.

Enjoy saved time by writing a code that works for you.

Happy coding!

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