Where can I find the PHP Strict Standards Definitions

Question

All I ever see of the PHP Strict Standards are errors reported when (ini_get('error_reporting') & E_STRICT) == true . Correcting these errors in an error driven way seems to be not optimal.

So in order to write code that is perfectly compliant with the PHP Strict Standards out of the box I would like to read what is defined in them. Where can I find the PHP Strict Standards?

All the searching I have done only leads to instructions of how to fix some arbitrary error reported by the Strict Standards, but never the Strict Standards themselves. Can anyone please provide a link?

Answer 1

The only way to know where all possibilities for an E_STRICT to be emitted would be to grep the source looking for E_STRICT . Basically, look here at the master branch: http://lxr.php.net/search?q=&defs=&refs=E_STRICT&path=Zend%2F&hist=&project=PHP_TRUNK . Note that in some cases master may differ from a particular version in what E_STRICT errors are raised and when.

Of course, understanding PHP's source would be difficult without an understanding of C and some of the common internals terminology.

Answer 2

Below is a complete list of the possible E_STRICT error messages in PHP 5.6 and bundled extensions (derived from http://lxr.php.net/s?refs=E_STRICT&project=PHP_5_6 ), along with a brief code sample that will provoke them.

In PHP 5.5, calling any mysql_* function would also produce an E_STRICT , as of PHP 5.6 it produces an E_NOTICE .

There are likely other places that emit them in PECL extensions, feel free to edit them in here if you find one.

---

Accessing static property ClassName::$propName as non static

class ClassName
{
    public static $propName = 1;
}
$o = new ClassName;
echo $o->propName; // error here

---

Resource ID#1 used as offset, casting to integer (1)

$fp = fopen('file.txt', 'r');
$array[$fp] = 'something'; // error here
// it's worth noting that an explicit cast to int has the same effect with no error:
$array[(int)$fp] = 'something'; //works

---

Non-static method ClassName::methodName() should not be called statically (may include additional text: assuming $this from compatible context OtherClassName)

class ClassName
{
    public function methodName()
    {
        return 1;
    }
}
echo ClassName::methodName(); // error here

---

Only variables should be assigned by reference

function func()
{
    return 1;
}
$var = &func(); // error here

---

Only variables should be passed by reference

function func(&$arg)
{
    $arg = 1;
}
function func2()
{
    return 0;
}
func(func2()); // error here

---

Static function ClassName::methodName() should not be abstract

abstract class ClassName
{
    abstract public static function methodName(); // error here
}
class OtherClassName extends ClassName
{
    public static function methodName()
    {
        return 1;
    }
}

---

Redefining already defined constructor for class ClassName

// Emitted when both a PHP4-style and PHP5-style constructor are declared in a class
class ClassName
{
    public function ClassName($arg)
    {
    }
    public function __construct($arg) // error here
    {
    }
}

---

Declaration of ClassName::methodName() should be compatible with OtherClassName::methodName()

// Emitted when a class declaration violates the Liskov Substitution Principle
// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liskov_substitution_principle
class OtherClassName
{
    public function methodName()
    {
        return 1;
    }
}
class ClassName extends OtherClassName
{
    public function methodName($arg) // error here
    {
        return $arg + 1;
    }
}

---

You should be using the time() function instead

// Emitted when calling mktime() with no arguments
$time = mktime(); // error here

---

Only basic entities substitution is supported for multi-byte encodings other than UTF-8; functionality is equivalent to htmlspecialchars

// Emitted when using a multi-byte character set that is not UTF-8 with
// htmlentities and some related functions
echo htmlentities("<Stuff>", ENT_COMPAT | ENT_HTML401, '936'); // error here

---

There is no next result set. Please, call mysqli_stmt_more_results()/mysqli_stmt::more_results() to check whether to call this function/method

// Emitted by mysqli_next_result() when there are no more results
do {
    // stuff
} while (mysqli_next_result($link)); // error here

Answer 3

There isn't one unified place that lists all of the strict errors but I wouldn't necessarily expect one either. That list would be enormous .

What you can do is look for E_STRICT notices. A common place that will list these is the Migration List that is put out when PHP minor versions (ie 5.X) are release. Here's the 5.4 backwards incompatability list , which shows what has E_STRICT notices now. I think this is the best you can get.