php

PHP Best Practices

This document outlines the definitive best practices for PHP development within our team. Adherence to these guidelines ensures consistency, maintainability, and security across all projects.

Critical Guidelines:

1. Code Organization and Structure (PSR-12 & Strict Types)

Always adhere to PSR-12 for coding style. This includes indentation, brace placement, and line length. Crucially, enable strict typing in every PHP file.

• Indentation: Use 4 spaces, never tabs.
• Line Endings: Unix LF only.
• Closing Tag: Omit ?> from files containing only PHP code.
• File Header Order:
  1. <?php
  2. File-level docblock (optional)
  3. declare(strict_types=1);
  4. namespace declaration
  5. use statements (class, then function, then constant, grouped)
  6. The rest of the code.

❌ BAD:

<?php
namespace App\Service;
use App\Model\User;
declare(strict_types=1);

class UserService {
    public function getUser($id) { // Missing return type, no strict types at top
        return User::find($id);
    }
}

✅ GOOD:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

namespace App\Service;

use App\Model\User;
use App\Repository\UserRepository;

class UserService
{
    public function __construct(private UserRepository $userRepository) {}

    public function getUser(int $id): ?User
    {
        return $this->userRepository->find($id);
    }
}

2. Common Patterns and Anti-patterns

• Type Hinting: Always use scalar and return type declarations. Leverage PHP 8+ union types, intersection types, and mixed/static/never where appropriate.
• Constructor Property Promotion: Use for concise dependency injection.
• Match Expression: Prefer match over switch for cleaner, more expressive comparisons.
• Null Coalescing Operator (??): Use to simplify checks for null or unset variables.
• Attributes: Prefer native PHP attributes (#[Attribute]) over docblock annotations for metadata.

❌ BAD:

class LegacyProcessor {
    public function process($type, $data) {
        switch ($type) { // Old switch, no types
            case 'foo': return 'Foo ' . $data;
            case 'bar': return 'Bar ' . $data;
            default: return null;
        }
    }
}

✅ GOOD:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

#[Attribute(Attribute::TARGET_CLASS)]
class MyServiceAttribute {}

#[MyServiceAttribute]
class ModernProcessor
{
    public function process(string $type, string $data): ?string
    {
        return match ($type) {
            'foo' => 'Foo ' . $data,
            'bar' => 'Bar ' . $data,
            default => null,
        };
    }

    public function getSetting(array $config): string
    {
        // Use null coalescing for default values
        return $config['setting'] ?? 'default_value';
    }
}

3. Performance Considerations

• Latest PHP Version: Always use the current stable PHP version (8.4+).
• Composer Autoloading: Optimize Composer's autoloader for production (composer dump-autoload --optimize --no-dev --classmap-authoritative).
• Avoid N+1 Queries: Eager load relationships in ORMs.
• Caching: Implement application-level caching for frequently accessed data.

4. Common Pitfalls and Gotchas

• Loose Comparisons: Always use strict comparison operators (===, !==).
• Error Suppression: Never use the @ operator. Handle errors gracefully with exceptions.
• Modifying Arrays During Iteration: Leads to unpredictable behavior. Iterate over a copy or use appropriate collection methods.

5. Security Best Practices

• Input Validation & Sanitization: Validate all external input. Use specific validation rules, not just filter_var.
• Output Escaping: Escape all output based on context (HTML, URL, JavaScript, CSS). Use templating engines that auto-escape or dedicated functions (e.g., htmlspecialchars).
• Prepared Statements: Always use parameterized queries (PDO or ORM) to prevent SQL injection.
• Password Hashing: Use password_hash() with PASSWORD_ARGON2ID (or PASSWORD_BCRYPT as fallback). Never store plain text passwords.
• Dependency Updates: Regularly update Composer dependencies and run composer audit.
• CSRF Protection: Implement CSRF tokens for state-changing requests.

❌ BAD:

$username = $_POST['username'];
$password = $_POST['password'];
$sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = '$username' AND password = '$password'"; // SQL Injection!
$db->query($sql);
echo "Hello, " . $_GET['name']; // XSS vulnerability!

✅ GOOD:

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

// Input Validation
if (!isset($_POST['username']) || !is_string($_POST['username'])) {
    throw new InvalidArgumentException('Invalid username.');
}
$username = trim($_POST['username']);

// Password Hashing
$hashedPassword = password_hash($_POST['password'], PASSWORD_ARGON2ID);

// Prepared Statements
$stmt = $db->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password");
$stmt->execute([':username' => $username, ':password' => $hashedPassword]);

// Output Escaping
echo "Hello, " . htmlspecialchars($_GET['name'] ?? 'Guest', ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');

6. Error Handling

• Exceptions: Use exceptions for all exceptional conditions. Create custom exception classes for domain-specific errors.
• Centralized Handling: Implement a global exception handler to catch unhandled exceptions and log them.
• Logging: Use a robust logging library (e.g., Monolog) for all errors, warnings, and important events.

7. API Design

• RESTful Principles: Design APIs to be resource-oriented, using standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and status codes.
• Consistent Naming: Use consistent pluralized resource names (e.g., /users, not /user).
• Versioning: Implement API versioning (e.g., /v1/users).
• Payload Validation: Strictly validate all incoming request payloads.

8. Testing Approaches

• PHPUnit: Write comprehensive unit and integration tests using PHPUnit.
• Test Doubles: Use mocks, stubs, and fakes to isolate units of code during testing.
• Static Analysis: Integrate PHPStan or Psalm into your CI/CD pipeline with a high strictness level.
• Continuous Integration: Automate tests and static analysis checks on every commit.