WordPress / WordPress/phpdoc-parser

classes that specify visibility on class constants can't be parsed

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Dominant language
PHP
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Avg merge
16h 29m
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

For example,

class My_Class {
    public const C1    = 'value';
    protected const C2 = 'another value';
    ...
}

Trying the parse the above results in an error like:

Parse Error: Syntax error, unexpected T_CONST, expecting T_FUNCTION on line xyz

and the entire class is not imported.

Visibility for class constants wasn't added to PHP until 7.1. Of course, as of today (2020-08-14) nothing in core specifies visibility on class constants since the minimum PHP is still 5.6. And current WPCS states:

Visibility for class constants can not be used in WordPress Core until the minimum PHP version has been raised to PHP 7.1 (and won’t be enforced until that time).

It is hopeful (likely?) that WP 5.6 will bump the minimum PHP to 7.1. So, the need to parse such classes will be coming sooner rather than later.

As best I can tell, the error is generated by nikic/php-parser, which is a transitive dependency of phpdocumentor/reflection. The latest version of nikic/php-parser fully supports PHP 7.1+, so I think the solution is simply to update the composer dependencies of this plugin, but things will need to be tested thoroughly after those dependencies are updated.

Contributor guide

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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

Inspect the Composer dependencies involving nikic/php-parser and phpdocumentor/reflection, then reproduce the failure with the class-constant example in the issue. Verify that the dependency update parses public and protected class constants and that the existing parser behavior remains intact.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
documentation, tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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