Getting Older With PHP Exakat runs continuous audits on over 1750 Open source applications, components and frameworks. This is a reality torture test : any error or unexpected results are reviewed and help update the analysis library and the Exakat engine itself. This is a golden mine of tests and real code : an exceptional […]
29
Oct
Oct
Common PHP 8.0 Compilation Error Messages With PHP 8.0 closing on us, it is high time to check our code bases to see if they compile, at least. Here is a list of common PHP 8.0 compilation messages, and what do to with them. The errors have been found on a corpus of 1756 PHP […]
21
Oct
Oct
Variable Variables Usage I call them ‘variable variables’, because it makes a funny sentence. What? Aren’t variables supposed to …vary, change, get altered? Indeed, they do. Yet, there are the ‘dynamic variables’ in PHP, which have been around as long as PHP itself (at least, PHP 3.+). Recent tutorials around the web, like Dynamic variables […]
12
Oct
Oct
Configuring Rules in Exakat Exakat default installation is tailored for discovery : it is made so as to give a broad view over the engine’s possibilities. As your experience grows, a more refined configuration is needed to adapt the results to the style of the development team. This tutorial helps your configuring rules in Exakat. […]
08
Oct
Oct
Named arguments and variadic in PHP 8 PHP 8.0 introduces the named arguments. This is an extension of the current positional syntax. Named arguments removes some of the limitations. It also modernizes the way methods are called with an arbitrary number of arguments, with the spread operator. Let’s see what is happening there. Quick review […]
04
Oct
Oct
I scream, you scream, we all scream for @ @ is a classic PHP operator, meant to suppress error displays locally. It is a staple of PHP code, in use in over 65% of PHP repositories : 2 repositories out of 3. Yet, it is widely recommended avoiding using it. Indeed, are there good reasons […]
01
Oct
Oct
Exakat 2.1.9 Review Exakat 2.1.9 comes loaded with no fewer than 11 new analysis : half of them are for PHP 8.0, and the other half is for code quality. There is now a dedicated report for migration to PHP, with backward incompatibility, and also suggestions. Let’s dive in the Exakat 2.1.9 Review. Migration to […]
25
Sep
Sep
Removing Unused Variables Is Good My favorite code clean is removing unused variables. This is right : variables that are hosted in the code, yet doing nothing. In fact, they are often toxic and grow bug-prone. Any old enough code source has them, and they tend to grow by the number. Have you ever tried […]
22
Sep
Sep
Exakat 2.1.8 Review Exakat 2.1.8 shines with the last warmth of summer. It is now time to start the resolute road to PHP 8.0 and its surprise incompatibility; or update PHP code stubs with the upcoming attributes. During the trip, we’ll stop observing the new SARIF format, the standard for static analysis tool in PHP […]
10
Sep
Sep
Typehint Recommendations for All The process of adding strong typing to a PHP code base is a long process. A standard application will require on average 11 000 arguments and return type to add, and that is not counting the properties (everyone is on PHP 7.4, right?) The vast majority of typehints are already in […]