Composer update and PHP short tags

Question

I have come across an issue with composer and PHP short tags <? .

Take this code below.

<?

    namespace SPACENAME;

    class generic_class {

        private $class_name = 'this_is_a_test';

        /**
         * This function is used to return the class name property.
         */
        public function some_function() {
            return true;
        }

    }

?>

If you notice, we have a class called generic_class and a comment that contains the words class name , and are using PHP's short tags <?

When I do a composer update my autoload class shows the following:

<?php

    // autoload_classmap.php @generated by Composer

    $vendorDir = dirname(dirname(__FILE__));
    $baseDir = dirname($vendorDir);

    return array(
        'SPACENAME\name' => $vendorDir . '/the/path/to/generic_class.php'
    );

?>

It seems to pick up the words class name in the comment and treats that as a class definition instead of using the actual class definition of generic_class . However if I use PHP's full tags <?php then this issue doesn't happen and my autoload class is correct.

<?php

    // autoload_classmap.php @generated by Composer

    $vendorDir = dirname(dirname(__FILE__));
    $baseDir = dirname($vendorDir);

    return array(
        'SPACENAME\generic_class' => $vendorDir . '/the/path/to/generic_class.php'
    );

?>

So, in one way I have fixed the issue by swapping my short tags to full tags. However I am currently working in a fairly large team who all use composer for the same project and do not get this issue with short tags. I can't see me being able to change their usage/opinion on short tags so I am hoping someone has a solution or at least an answer as to why this may be happening on my machine and no one elses?

I did try to google for the answer but came up with nothing, is there a composer setting that stops it recognizing short tags as valid php therefore it is unable to know what is code and what is a comment?

Information that might be helpful

• We all have the same OS (Windows).

• We are all on the same version of composer.

• We are all working from the same codebase.

• There are 8 of us working on the project at the moment.

• We all have our PHP servers set up differently, I am the only one who uses WAMPSERVER 3.

Answer 1

Basically you need just to disable short tags in your configuration. Just set

short_open_tag=0

in your php.ini . Please, be careful: the php interpreter used by composed sometimes has a different php.ini with respect to the Apache version.

See: http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.short-open-tag