PHP coding standards

Starting with Nextcloud 19 there is a shared PHP Coding Standards Fixer configuration you can use to automatically format your app’s source code. For full details see the repository on GitHub.

Always use:

<?php

at the start of your php code. The final closing:

?>

should not be used at the end of the file due to the possible issue of sending white spaces.

Comments

All API methods need to be marked with PHPDoc markup. An example would be:

<?php

/**
 * Description what method does
 * @param Controller $controller the controller that will be transformed
 * @param API $api an instance of the API class
 * @throws APIException if the api is broken
 * @since 4.5
 * @return string a name of a user
 */
public function myMethod(Controller $controller, API $api) {
  // ...
}

Objects, functions, arrays & variables

Use UpperCamelCase for Objects, lowerCamelCase for functions and variables. If you set a default function/method parameter, do not use spaces. Do not prepend private class members with underscores.

class MyClass {

}

function myFunction($default=null) {

}

$myVariable = 'blue';

$someArray = array(
    'foo'  => 'bar',
    'spam' => 'ham',
);

?>

Operators

Use === and !== instead of == and !=.

Here’s why:

<?php

var_dump(0 == "a"); // 0 == 0 -> true
var_dump("1" == "01"); // 1 == 1 -> true
var_dump("10" == "1e1"); // 10 == 10 -> true
var_dump(100 == "1e2"); // 100 == 100 -> true

?>

Control structures

Always use { } for one line ifs
Split long ifs into multiple lines
Always use break in switch statements and prevent a default block with warnings if it shouldn’t be accessed

<?php

// single line if
if ($myVar === 'hi') {
    $myVar = 'ho';
} else {
    $myVar = 'bye';
}

// long ifs
if (   $something === 'something'
    || $condition2
    && $condition3
) {
  // your code
}

// for loop
for ($i = 0; $i < 4; $i++) {
    // your code
}

switch ($condition) {
    case 1:
        // action1
        break;

    case 2:
        // action2;
        break;

    default:
        // defaultaction;
        break;
}

?>

Unit tests

Unit tests must always extend the \Test\TestCase class, which takes care of cleaning up the installation after the test.

If a test is run with multiple different values, a data provider must be used. The name of the data provider method must not start with test and must end with Data.

<?php
namespace Test;
class Dummy extends \Test\TestCase {
    public function dummyData() {
        return array(
            array(1, true),
            array(2, false),
        );
    }

    /**
     * @dataProvider dummyData
     */
    public function testDummy($input, $expected) {
        $this->assertEquals($expected, \Dummy::method($input));
    }
}