PHPCompatibility / PHPCompatibility/PHPCompatibility

PHP 8.0: `*printf()` and related functions support new specifiers

Open
#1,540 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

PHP: 8.0 Type: enhancement
Dominant language
PHP
Stars
2.3k
Forks
201
Avg merge
3d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
42

Description

Is your feature request related to a problem?

PHP 8.0 silently introduced two new placeholder characters for the *printf() range of functions.
This not mentioned in migration guide, changelog etc - I only discovered it by accident via a small note in the manual.

h | Like the g specifier but uses F. Available as of PHP 8.0.0.
H | Like the g specifier but uses E and F. Available as of PHP 8.0.0.

Ref: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sprintf.php

Describe the solution you'd like

New sniff in the ParameterValue category to analyze the $format parameter of the relevant functions and flag use of the new modifiers if PHP < 8.0 needs to be supported.

  • I intend to create a pull request to implement this feature.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the ParameterValue category and the existing handling for the *printf() family, then trace how the $format parameter and PHP-version conditions are represented. Done means a new sniff flags the h and H specifiers when compatibility with PHP versions before 8.0 is required, with coverage in the project’s relevant test suite.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.