PHP

→ php.net

Dev setup

PHP binaries

Download the version that you want from the download page. You may consider reading a little about thread safe (for Apache) and not thread safe versions (for IIS, nginx or command line).

On Windows, you'll download a zip file, you just have to extract it somewhere (more in a program folder). You can add the direetory in the environment PATH but it's not mandatory. For example, you can add the following line in a command window:

# Windows
SET PATH="%PATH%;D:\Programs\php-7.2.2-nts-Win32-VC15-x64"

Once you're clear on your PHP installation setup, you should be able to get something like this:

php -v
# PHP 7.2.2 (cli) (built: Jan 31 2018 19:31:15) ( NTS MSVC15 (Visual C++ 2017) x64 )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies

By default, there is no php.ini file in the installation folder, you can copy the development one to create your own file.

Nginx

CGI

• Create a bat file, for example start-php-fcgi.bat:

@ECHO OFF
ECHO Starting PHP FastCGI...
set PATH=D:\Programs\php-7.2.4-nts-Win32-VC15-x64;%PATH%
c:\bin\RunHiddenConsole.exe D:\Programs\php-7.2.4-nts-Win32-VC15-x64\php-cgi.exe -b 127.0.0.1:9123

Composer

Composer is the dependency (package) manager for PHP.

Once it is installed, you should be able to get the following:

composer -V
# Composer version 1.6.3 2018-01-31 16:28:17

You can install packages system or project wide. Here are some tools that are good to have system wide:

# this will install phpcs
composer global require squizlabs/php_codesniffer
# (optional) add standard rules by default
phpcs --config-set default_standard Squiz

Composer configuration file is called composer.json.

XDebug

XDebug is required to debug your code in your IDE (Eclipse PDT, VS Code, etc.).

• Go on Installation page and select the version related to your PHP one, for example php_xdebug-2.6.0-7.2-vc15-nts-x86_64.dll.
• Copy the file in the ext directory of your PHP installation directory.

• Edit your php.ini file to add the following lines to activate the debugging (if you don't know which php.ini file you're using make a phpinfo() file)

# after all the ;extension lines in [PHP] section at the beginning of the file
# For Windows
zend_extension=D:/Programs/php-7.2.2-nts-Win32-VC15-x64/ext/php_xdebug-2.6.0-7.2-vc15-nts-x86_64.dll

# at the end of the file
[XDebug]
xdebug.remote_enable = 1
xdebug.remote_autostart = 1

IDE

VS Code

Visual Studio Code is an indredible tool provided by Microsoft. You can review PHP Programming in VS Code for more information.

If you want to see a preview or get up to speed quickly, you can watch laracasts.com series.

You just have to set php.validate.executablePath in your user settings in VS Code if it's not in the PATH (which could be a good practice if several PHP versions must be present on the machine).

Language

Conventions

phpcs is a good tool to validate the code that is written.

It can be easily configured, see the Configuration Options.

You can also change the behaviour directly in the file.

// phpcs:disable
// phpcs:enable
// phpcs:ignoreFile

You can define your own ruleset, see Annotated ruleset.xml.

For example, custom_ruleset.xml file content:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ruleset name="Custom Standard">
    <rule ref="Squiz">
        <exclude name="Squiz.Commenting.FileComment.Missing"/>
        <exclude name="Squiz.Strings.DoubleQuoteUsage.ContainsVar" />
    </rule>
</ruleset>

You can configure it in VS Code or from the command line:

phpcs my/path/to/file.php --standard=my/path/to/custom_ruleset.xml

MongoDB Driver

There is a PHP extension and a PHP library to access MongoDB, see docs.mongodb.com.

Installation

• (Windows) Download the zip file for the good version from pecl.php.net and copy the dll inside the zip file to your extension folder.
• Add in your php.ini file:

# For Windows
extension=php_mongodb.dll

• From your project directory:

composer require mongodb/mongodb

Reference: php.net.

First steps

<?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

$client     = new MongoDB\Client('mongodb://localhost:27017');
$collection = $client->demo->beers;

$result = $collection->insertOne([ 'name' => 'Hinterland', 'brewery' => 'BrewDog' ]);

echo "Inserted with Object ID '{$result->getInsertedId()}'\n";

$result = $collection->find([ 'name' => 'Hinterland', 'brewery' => 'BrewDog' ]);

foreach ($result as $entry) {
    echo $entry['_id'], ': ', $entry['name'], "\n";
}

Reference: Using the PHP Library for MongoDB (PHPLIB).

Libraries

• Pimple: A simple PHP Dependency Injection Container

Tools

phpdbg

• PHP RFC: phpdbg
• krakjoe/phpdbg

Unit tests

PHPUnit

PHPUnit is a testing framework for PHP. It is open source: sebastianbergmann/phpunit. It is available on packagist.

Getting started with PHPUnit

• Read Getting Started with PHPUnit 8
• Install locally: composer require phpunit/phpunit --dev

  • Check the tool is running file: php vendor/phpunit/phpunit/phpunit --version (or php vendor/bin/phpunit on a non-Windows environment)

• Edit composer.json file and execute composer install to regenerate autoload file

  "autoload": {
      "psr-4": {
          "App\\": "src/"
      }
  },
  "autoload-dev": {
      "psr-4": {
          "App\\Tests\\": "tests/"
      }
  }

• Create phpunit.xml.dist file:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <!-- https://phpunit.de/manual/current/en/appendixes.configuration.html -->
  <phpunit xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
           xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://schema.phpunit.de/6.5/phpunit.xsd"
           backupGlobals="false"
           colors="true"
           bootstrap="config/bootstrap.php">
      <php>
          <ini name="error_reporting" value="-1" />
          <env name="APP_ENV" value="test" />
          <env name="SHELL_VERBOSITY" value="-1" />
      </php>
      <testsuites>
          <testsuite name="Project Test Suite">
              <directory>tests</directory>
          </testsuite>
      </testsuites>
      <filter>
          <whitelist>
              <directory>src</directory>
          </whitelist>
      </filter>
  </phpunit>

• Launch the tests: php vendor/phpunit/phpunit/phpunit -c phpunit.xml.dist --log-junit junit.xml

  • With coverage (Code Coverage Analysis): php vendor/phpunit/phpunit/phpunit -c phpunit.xml.dist --coverage-html .build/coverage-report --coverage-clover .build/coverage.xml
  • Integration in SonarCloud: PHP Unit Tests and Coverage Results Import
• We can also use phpdbg (that is now shipped with PHP): phpdbg -qrr vendor/phpunit/phpunit/phpunit -c phpunit.xml.dist (comparison with xdebug here: Generating Code Coverage with PHPUnit and phpdbg)
• You can also use Symfony PHPUnit bridge: composer install symfony/phpunit-bridge --dev (and create a bin/console and update your gitignore)

• For Mocks : Test Doubles