Variable type hinting in Netbeans (PHP)

php phpdoc php-ide
rr. picture rr. · Nov 25, 2009 · Viewed 46k times · Source

Just curious if there's a way in netbeans to give type hints for regular variables, so that intellisense picks it up. I know you can do it for class properties, function parameters, return types, etc. but I can't figure out how to do it for regular variables. It's something that would really help in situations where you have a method that can return different object types (like a service locator).

ex something like:

/**
 * @var Some_Service $someService
 */
$someService = ServiceLocator::locate('someService');

Where using $someService afterward, netbeans would provide all available methods defined in the class Some_Service.

Answer

johannes picture johannes · Nov 25, 2009

A single line is all you need:

/* @var $varName Type_Name */

See this article in the NetBeans PHP Blog: https://blogs.oracle.com/netbeansphp/entry/defining_a_variable_type_in

Note: At least, in version 8.2; The key seems to be:

  • The single asterisk (/* instead of /**).
  • Placing the type after the variable name.
  • Having nothing before and after the type-hinting (except white-space, but even that is not allowed when the comment is not in a single line).

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