Skip to content

New sniff: change create_function() code to closures #6

@jrfnl

Description

@jrfnl
Sniff basics -
Fixable for PHP: 5.3+
Sniff type: Modernize
Fixer type: Risky

Short description

PHP 5.3 introduced anonymous functions - also called closures - for on the fly function creation. Previously this was only possible using a call to create_function().
Use of create_function() has been deprecated as of PHP 7.2 and is slated to be removed in PHP 8.0.

Related PHPCompatibility sniff(s):

  • NewClosure
  • DeprecatedFunctions

PHP manual references:

Example code:

Detect the following code pattern(s):

$newfunc = create_function('$a,$b', 'return "ln($a) + ln($b) = " . log($a * $b);');

$garr = array(
    create_function('$b,$a', 'if (strncmp($a, $b, 3) == 0) return "** \"$a\" '.
    'and \"$b\"\n** Look the same to me! (looking at the first 3 chars)";'),
    create_function('$a,$b', '; return "CRCs: " . crc32($a) . ", ".crc32($b);'),
    create_function('$a,$b', '; return "similar(a,b) = " . similar_text($a, $b, &$p) . "($p%)";')
);

array_walk($av, create_function('&$v,$k', '$v = $v . "mango";'));

And fix these to:

$newfunc = function($a,$b) { return "ln($a) + ln($b) = " . log($a * $b); };

$garr = array(
    function($b,$a) { if (strncmp($a, $b, 3) == 0) return "** \"$a\"
    and \"$b\"\n** Look the same to me! (looking at the first 3 chars)";},
    function($a,$b) {; return "CRCs: " . crc32($a) . ", ".crc32($b);},
    function($a,$b) {; return "similar(a,b) = " . similar_text($a, $b, &$p) . "($p%)";}
);

array_walk($av, function(&$v,$k) { $v = $v . "mango";});

Notes for implementation of the sniff:

  • Beware of escaped quotes in the code passed to create_function().
  • Beware of single versus double quotes. Variables in a double quoted string may expand to additional code.
  • Beware of $code being concatenated or being passed a variable.
  • If the original function call was single line, but contained multiple statements in the $code parameter, it should probably be turned into a multi-line function layout. The indentation should be left to the code-style sniffs of the code base and are not the concern of this library.
  • Beware of a potential @ silence operator before the call to create_function() and if found, it needs to be removed.
  • This sniff will need to be extensively tested!

For code which still has to support PHP < 5.3 as well as PHP 7.2+, the sniff could add the @ silence operator to the create_function() call to prevent the deprecated function notice from being thrown.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions