Emulating block scope in PHP

Variables are born, they live their lives, and then they die. But beware! (Cue spoopy theme music.) Zombie variables lurk in the simplest of PHP.

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Bypassing private and protected visibility in PHP

Members declared protected can be accessed only within the class itself and by inherited classes. Members declared as private may only be accessed by the class that defines the member.

PHP documentation on property visibility

This is true only in an academic sense: code outside the object can still get and set private and protected members. As usual in PHP, all it takes is a little magic.

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Evoking all possible test failure modes in PHPUnit

When you're writing your own PHPUnit test listener, you need a test case that evokes all the different PHPUnit test states. Here's you go:

<?php
class EvokesTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    public function test_pass()
    {
    }

    public function test_fail()
    {
        $this->fail(__FUNCTION__);
    }

    public function test_error()
    {
        throw new \RuntimeException(__FUNCTION__);
    }

    public function test_skipped()
    {
        $this->markTestSkipped(__FUNCTION__);
    }

    public function test_incomplete()
    {
        $this->markTestIncomplete(__FUNCTION__);
    }

    public function test_risky()
    {
        throw new \PHPUnit_Framework_RiskyTestError;
    }
}

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Using vim to replace string functions with their multi-byte equivalent

The PHP INI option mbstring.func_overload override certain string functions (like strpos, substr, etc.) with multi-byte aware implementations. This makes it super easy to migrate a legacy code base to UTF-8, but immediately restricts interaction with vendor products (Symfony, Net_DNS2, etc.).

The proper integration is to manually replace string functions with their multi-byte equivalent. In one legacy code base I'm improving, there are on the order of 10k instances of these functions. I want to change and verify each replacement, but I don't want to type much. Time for some vim-fu:

:argdo %s/strpos/mb_strpos/gc | wn

This performs a confirmed find and replace, writes the change to disk, then moves on to the next file.

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[Proposed] Elephpant Etiquette

Yes, I do believe PHP internals needs a guide to etiquette. But, no, not a code of conduct. Internals is a decades (plural) old cathedral-like meritocracy. There is no benevolent dictator. There is no functional oversight group. No rigorous process (like Go has) will work in the internals ecosystem.

Anthony's draft sets the stage, but I don't think it'll draw the crowds. For that, we need a moderate approach that emphasizes the definition of acceptable behavior while limiting the authoritative scope. Here's my second attempt at a custom-fit "code of conduct" roughly based on the one from Go:

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PHP Contributor Etiquette

I was the first to publically +1 the Code of Conduct RFC. I'd love to see a policy that fosters diversity and inclusion, because damn the PHP crowd is startlingly similar. But, after hearing the arguments, I can't endorse the code as written. It's too focused on process and punishment. I believe we need to look at this from a definition of rights and responsibilities. This is my attempt.

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Wielding PHP magic with the Callable Object Pattern

The PHP magic method __invoke provides a powerful way to encapsulate functionality while separating state from results and errors.

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Dealing with uncomposable PHP dependencies

For managing dependencies in PHP, you rely on Composer.  But how do you manage a dependency that doesn't support composer?  Simple: weave it into your repository using braid.

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Shaking out dependencies in PHPUnit unit tests

Isolation is a unit test ideal. You should, in theory, be able to run them in a random order, or in parallel, with no effect on the results.  PHPUnit provides no options to do this, but, fortunately, two neat GNU command line utilities can help.

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Memoization 2.0

You might think "Memoization" is a typo, but it's not. Memoization is a simple technique to improve software performance. Unfortunately, the technique relies upon repetitive boilerplate. In this article, I show you how to use memoization without any boilerplate code.

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