, (*1)
TypeResolver and FqsenResolver
The specification on types in DocBlocks (PSR-5) describes various keywords and special constructs
but also how to statically resolve the partial name of a Class into a Fully Qualified Class Name (FQCN)., (*2)
PSR-5 also introduces an additional way to describe deeper elements than Classes, Interfaces and Traits
called the Fully Qualified Structural Element Name (FQSEN). Using this it is possible to refer to methods,
properties and class constants but also functions and global constants., (*3)
This package provides two Resolvers that are capable of, (*4)
- Returning a series of Value Object for given expression while resolving any partial class names, and
- Returning an FQSEN object after resolving any partial Structural Element Names into Fully Qualified Structural
Element names.
Installing
The easiest way to install this library is with Composer using the following command:, (*5)
$ composer require phpdocumentor/type-resolver
Examples
Ready to dive in and don't want to read through all that text below? Just consult the examples folder and check which type of action that your want to accomplish., (*6)
On Types and Element Names
This component can be used in one of two ways, (*7)
- To resolve a Type or
- To resolve a Fully Qualified Structural Element Name
The big difference between these two is in the number of things it can resolve., (*8)
The TypeResolver can resolve:, (*9)
Where the FqsenResolver can resolve:, (*12)
- Constant expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\MY_CONSTANT
)
- Function expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\myFunction()
)
- Class expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\MyClass
)
- Interface expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\MyInterface
)
- Trait expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\MyTrait
)
- Class constant expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\MyClass::MY_CONSTANT
)
- Property expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\MyClass::$myProperty
)
- Method expressions (i.e.
@see \MyNamespace\MyClass::myMethod()
)
Resolving a type
In order to resolve a type you will have to instantiate the class \phpDocumentor\Reflection\TypeResolver
and call its resolve
method like this:, (*13)
$typeResolver = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\TypeResolver();
$type = $typeResolver->resolve('string|integer');
In this example you will receive a Value Object of class \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Compound
that has two
elements, one of type \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\String_
and one of type
\phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Integer
., (*14)
The real power of this resolver is in its capability to expand partial class names into fully qualified class names; but in order to do that we need an additional \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Context
class that will inform the resolver in which namespace the given expression occurs and which namespace aliases (or imports) apply., (*15)
Resolving nullable types
Php 7.1 introduced nullable types e.g. ?string
. Type resolver will resolve the original type without the nullable notation ?
just like it would do without the ?
. After that the type is wrapped in a \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Nullable
object.
The Nullable
type has a method to fetch the actual type., (*16)
Resolving an FQSEN
A Fully Qualified Structural Element Name is a reference to another element in your code bases and can be resolved using the \phpDocumentor\Reflection\FqsenResolver
class' resolve
method, like this:, (*17)
$fqsenResolver = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\FqsenResolver();
$fqsen = $fqsenResolver->resolve('\phpDocumentor\Reflection\FqsenResolver::resolve()');
In this example we resolve a Fully Qualified Structural Element Name (meaning that it includes the full namespace, class name and element name) and receive a Value Object of type \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Fqsen
., (*18)
The real power of this resolver is in its capability to expand partial element names into Fully Qualified Structural Element Names; but in order to do that we need an additional \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Context
class that will inform the resolver in which namespace the given expression occurs and which namespace aliases (or imports) apply., (*19)
Resolving partial Classes and Structural Element Names
Perhaps the best feature of this library is that it knows how to resolve partial class names into fully qualified class names., (*20)
For example, you have this file:, (*21)
namespace My\Example;
use phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types;
class Classy
{
/**
* @var Types\Context
* @see Classy::otherFunction()
*/
public function __construct($context) {}
public function otherFunction(){}
}
Suppose that you would want to resolve (and expand) the type in the @var
tag and the element name in the @see
tag., (*22)
For the resolvers to know how to expand partial names you have to provide a bit of Context for them by instantiating a new class named \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Context
with the name of the namespace and the aliases that are in play., (*23)
Creating a Context
You can do this by manually creating a Context like this:, (*24)
$context = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Context(
'\My\Example',
[ 'Types' => '\phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types']
);
Or by using the \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\ContextFactory
to instantiate a new context based on a Reflector object or by providing the namespace that you'd like to extract and the source code of the file in which the given type expression occurs., (*25)
$contextFactory = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\ContextFactory();
$context = $contextFactory->createFromReflector(new ReflectionMethod('\My\Example\Classy', '__construct'));
or, (*26)
$contextFactory = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\ContextFactory();
$context = $contextFactory->createForNamespace('\My\Example', file_get_contents('My/Example/Classy.php'));
Using the Context
After you have obtained a Context it is just a matter of passing it along with the resolve
method of either Resolver class as second argument and the Resolvers will take this into account when resolving partial names., (*27)
To obtain the resolved class name for the @var
tag in the example above you can do:, (*28)
$typeResolver = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\TypeResolver();
$type = $typeResolver->resolve('Types\Context', $context);
When you do this you will receive an object of class \phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Object_
for which you can call the getFqsen
method to receive a Value Object that represents the complete FQSEN. So that would be phpDocumentor\Reflection\Types\Context
., (*29)
Why is the FQSEN wrapped in another object Object_
?, (*30)
The resolve method of the TypeResolver only returns object with the interface Type
and the FQSEN is a common type that does not represent a Type. Also: in some cases a type can represent an "Untyped Object", meaning that it is an object (signified by the object
keyword) but does not refer to a specific element using an FQSEN., (*31)
Another example is on how to resolve the FQSEN of a method as can be seen with the @see
tag in the example above. To resolve that you can do the following:, (*32)
$fqsenResolver = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\FqsenResolver();
$type = $fqsenResolver->resolve('Classy::otherFunction()', $context);
Because Classy is a Class in the current namespace its FQSEN will have the My\Example
namespace and by calling the resolve
method of the FQSEN Resolver you will receive an Fqsen
object that refers to \My\Example\Classy::otherFunction()
., (*33)