README

PHPCompatibilityWP

Using PHPCompatibilityWP, you can analyse the codebase of a WordPress-based project for PHP cross-version compatibility.

What's in this repo ?

A ruleset for PHP_CodeSniffer to check for PHP cross-version compatibility issues in projects based on the WordPress CMS.

This WordPress specific ruleset prevents false positives from the PHPCompatibility standard by excluding back-fills and poly-fills which are provided by WordPress.

Requirements

• PHP_CodeSniffer.

  • PHP 5.3+ for use with PHP_CodeSniffer 2.3.0+.
  • PHP 5.4+ for use with PHP_CodeSniffer 3.0.2+.

  Use the latest stable release of PHP_CodeSniffer for the best results. The minimum recommended version of PHP_CodeSniffer is version 2.6.0.

• PHPCompatibility 9.0.0+.

• PHPCompatibilityParagonie 1.0.0+.

Installation instructions

The only supported installation method is via Composer.

If you don't have a Composer plugin installed to manage the installed_paths setting for PHP_CodeSniffer, run the following from the command-line:

composer config allow-plugins.dealerdirect/phpcodesniffer-composer-installer true
composer require --dev dealerdirect/phpcodesniffer-composer-installer:"^0.7" phpcompatibility/phpcompatibility-wp:"*"

If you already have a Composer PHP_CodeSniffer plugin installed, run:

composer require --dev phpcompatibility/phpcompatibility-wp:"*"

Next, run:

vendor/bin/phpcs -i

If all went well, you will now see that the PHPCompatibility, PHPCompatibilityWP and some more PHPCompatibility standards are installed for PHP_CodeSniffer.

How to use

Now you can use the following command to inspect your code:

./vendor/bin/phpcs -p . --standard=PHPCompatibilityWP

By default, you will only receive notifications about deprecated and/or removed PHP features.

To get the most out of the PHPCompatibilityWP standard, you should specify a testVersion to check against. That will enable the checks for both deprecated/removed PHP features as well as the detection of code using new PHP features.

The minimum PHP requirement of the WordPress project up to WP 5.1 was 5.2.4. As of WP 5.2 it will be PHP 5.6.20. If you want to enforce this, either add --runtime-set testVersion 5.6- to your command-line command or add <config name="testVersion" value="5.6-"/> to your custom ruleset.

For example:

# For a project which should be compatible with PHP 5.6 and higher:
./vendor/bin/phpcs -p . --standard=PHPCompatibilityWP --runtime-set testVersion 5.6-

For more detailed information about setting the testVersion, see the README of the generic PHPCompatibility standard.

Testing PHP files only

By default PHP_CodeSniffer will analyse PHP, JavaScript and CSS files. As the PHPCompatibility sniffs only target PHP code, you can make the run slightly faster by telling PHP_CodeSniffer to only check PHP files, like so:

./vendor/bin/phpcs -p . --standard=PHPCompatibilityWP --extensions=php --runtime-set testVersion 5.6-

License

All code within the PHPCompatibility organisation is released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). For more information, visit https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html

Changelog

2.1.5 - 2024-04-25

• Ruleset: Updated for compatibility with WordPress 6.5. Thanks @swissspidy
• The recommended version of the Composer PHPCS plugin is now ^1.0.
• Other housekeeping and documentation updates. Includes contributions from @fredden and @johnbillion.

2.1.4 - 2022-10-24

• Composer: The package will now identify itself as a static analysis tool. Thanks @GaryJones!
• Other housekeeping and minor documentation updates.

2.1.3 - 2021-12-31

• Ruleset: Updated for compatibility with WordPress 5.9.
• README: Updated the installation instructions for compatibility with Composer >= 2.2.
• Minor housekeeping.

2.1.2 - 2021-07-21

• Ruleset: Updated for compatibility with WordPress 5.8.
• Documentation: improved installation instructions. Props Andy Fragen.

2.1.1 - 2021-02-15

• The recommended version of the Composer PHPCS plugin is now ^0.7.0, which offers compatibility with Composer 2.0.
• The ruleset is now also tested against PHP 7.4 and 8.0. Note: full PHP 7.4 support is only available in combination with PHP_CodeSniffer >= 3.5.6. Note: runtime PHP 8.0 support is only available in combination with PHP_CodeSniffer >= 3.5.7, full support is expected in PHP_CodeSniffer 3.6.0.

2.1.0 - 2019-08-29

• Ruleset: Updated for the Sodium_Compat polyfill which is included in WordPress 5.2.
• Composer: The recommended version of the Composer PHPCS plugin has been upped to ^0.5.0.
• Documentation: Updated the ruleset inline documentation and the Readme to reflect the change in minimum PHP requirements for WordPress as of WP 5.2.
• Documentation: Updated the ruleset inline documentation to include information on when each polyfill was added to/removed from WordPress.
• CI: The rulesets are now also tested against PHP 7.3. Note: full PHP 7.3 support is only available in combination with PHP_CodeSniffer 2.9.2 or 3.3.1+ due to an incompatibility within PHP_CodeSniffer itself.

2.0.0 - 2018-10-07

• Ruleset: Updated for compatibility with PHPCompatibility 9.0+.
• Composer: Added dependency for a dedicated polyfill-based PHPCompatibility ruleset.
• CI: Added a test for the ruleset.
• Readme: Removed the installation instructions for a non-Composer based install.

1.0.0 - 2018-07-17

Initial release of the PHPCompatibilityWP ruleset.