PHP Forge

Free PHP language server for VS Code — built for real-world projects, from modern Composer apps to legacy code held together by include.

1.0. Interface in English and French (follows the VS Code display language).

Features

• Completion that knows your types: variables in scope, object members (visibility respected), static members and enum cases, functions / classes / constants filtered by your PHP version, keywords, include paths, known array keys, phpdoc tags — with documentation on demand.
• Type inference: declared types and phpdoc (generics, array{…} shapes, @template, @property, @method, @mixin), types inferred from code when nothing is declared (return values, properties assigned in constructors, constants), variable flow with narrowing (instanceof, is_*, null checks, assert).
• Signature help and inlay hints (parameter names; inferred variable and return types optional).
• Go to Definition (closest override for redefined methods), Go to Implementation, highlight occurrences, folding, smart selection, semantic highlighting.
• Hover: variable types, signature, namespace, phpdoc, PHP version availability, deprecation, php.net links.
• Whole-project index in the background (worker threads), cached on disk: a 19,000-file project is indexed in about 6 s.
• Outline / breadcrumbs, workspace symbol search (Ctrl+T) and live syntax errors (a forgotten ; is pointed out on its own line, with an "Add ;" quick fix). In HTML, <?php $x ?> without echo and short <? tags are flagged, with quick fixes.
• SQL in PHP strings: highlighting of the whole query (every part of a concatenation, $sql .= … additions, query function arguments, strings marked /** @sql */); completion of tables, of columns according to the FROM aliases and of SQL functions; column hover (type, NULL, default); Go to Definition to the CREATE TABLE; checks for SQL syntax slips, unknown columns and unknown tables, from the project's .sql files or the real database (see SQL schema below). $row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($res) and PDO fetch() rows know the columns of the SELECT.
• Mixed quotes: SQL queries and other string concatenations that mix '…' and "…" parts are flagged, with a quick fix.
• Security: request data followed to SQL queries, HTML output, shell commands, includes, unserialize, redirects and file writes — also through extract($_POST) in an including file and through your own functions — with the propagation path in the message.
• PHP version migration: set phpForge.migration.targetVersion to list what breaks between your PHP version and the target, with safe quick fixes and a Migration report.
• Diagnostics for the whole project, in the background: undefined functions, classes, constants, methods and properties (only on known types), argument count, unused use, unreachable code, APIs removed or added after your PHP version, deprecated syntax, functions declared twice in an include chain. Level per rule, // @php-forge-ignore, and a baseline to hide the existing problems of a legacy project.
• Problems on hover: hover a line with an error or warning to see the problem, the proposed fix and an Apply link.
• Native PHP functions and classes from JetBrains phpstorm-stubs, for the PHP version of your project (shown in the status bar).
• Legacy-friendly: Latin-1 / Windows-1252 files, PHP mixed with HTML, untyped code, functions declared inside if (!function_exists(…)).

Includes (projects without autoload)

PHP Forge follows include / require like PHP does, from every page that nobody includes. In a file included by several pages, a variable is reported as soon as one of them does not define it, with the faulty pages:

$title is not defined when included from lp_3/index.php:3 (defined in 2 other callers)

Variables created in included files keep their type and origin (hover, completion, go to definition). The Include Tree view (Explorer) and the "Included by N files" CodeLens show who includes what. Include paths written with server paths are mapped with phpForge.serverRoot or the remotePath of .vscode/deploy.json; a dynamic include can be documented with /** @include path/to/file.php */ on the line above.

The PHP Impact view (Explorer) lists the PHP files you changed (Git changes and unsaved files) and, for each one, the pages that load it through includes — the pages to check before going live. With FTP SFTP Deploy installed, Deploy changed files in its title bar uploads every changed file; it first offers to save unsaved ones, warns when a file has errors (phpForge.deploy.checkErrors), never sends files in merge conflict, and asks for confirmation with the server and the files that will be sent.

Diagnostics

• Change a level or turn a rule off with phpForge.diagnostics.rules, e.g. { "unused-use": "off", "undefined-variable": "error" }.
• Ignore one line with // @php-forge-ignore <code> (on the line or the line above), a whole file with /** @php-forge-ignore-file <code> */ — both offered as quick fixes.
• Baseline: run PHP Forge: Create Baseline on a legacy project — existing problems are stored in .vscode/php-forge-baseline.json and hidden, only new ones are shown (count in the status bar).
• Library folders (phpForge.libraryPaths, and folders with their own composer.json) are indexed but never diagnosed; add third-party code copied into the project there (e.g. "**/artichow/**").

Refactoring and imports

• Rename (F2) and Find All References across the project: variables (also across includes, global and $GLOBALS['x']), parameters (with named arguments), functions, classes (use, types, phpdoc), methods, properties, constants and namespaces. 'Class::method' strings and callables ([$obj, 'm'], [Foo::class, 'm']) are included when certain; a method called on an untyped object only counts when no other class declares the same name. Native PHP and library symbols cannot be renamed.
• "N references" / "N implementations" CodeLens above classes, functions, methods and interfaces.
• Auto-import: accepting a class, function or constant from another namespace adds the use, sorted.
• Suggested imports on unknown names ("Import Lib\User", "Import all missing classes"); for code without namespaces, "Add include 'includes/fonctions.php'" written in the file's own style (ROOT_PATH.'/…', __DIR__ . '/…', $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'], relative).
• Organize use statements (sort, group, remove unused), also on save with phpForge.organizeUsesOnSave.
• Code generation: getters and setters, constructor (property promotion from PHP 8.0), missing methods of interfaces and abstract classes, PHPDoc skeleton, @var for a variable.
• Quick fixes: declare an undefined variable, replace a deprecated or removed function by its documented replacement.

Formatting

• Format Document, Format Selection, format on type (;, }) and on save (editor.formatOnSave): PSR-12 indentation, spacing and braces. Only the whitespace between tokens is rewritten — strings, heredocs, comments and HTML are never changed, and formatting twice gives the same result.
• Mixed HTML / PHP: only <?php … ?> blocks are formatted, indented from the line of their <?php tag; <?= … ?> is only normalized to <?= $x ?>. The line break after ?> is never touched.
• Options: braces (psr12 or keep), alignment of => and =, trailing commas in multi-line arrays, indicative line length. A file with a syntax error is left as is.

SQL schema

PHP Forge reads the tables of the project's .sql files (phpForge.sql.schema: CREATE TABLE, ALTER TABLE … ADD). To use the real database instead, set phpForge.sql.connection (host, port, user, database) and run PHP Forge: Refresh SQL schema: the password is asked once and kept in VS Code secret storage, only INFORMATION_SCHEMA is read (in a read-only session from MySQL 5.6 / MariaDB 10.0), and the result is written to .vscode/php-forge-schema.json of the chosen workspace folder — each folder of a multi-root workspace has its own schema (add it to .gitignore if the schema is private). The database schema is the reference: unknown tables are reported only when it is loaded, and old .sql dumps can report columns that were added since — refresh it.

Completion in strings: VS Code does not suggest inside strings by default; press Ctrl+Space, or set "editor.quickSuggestions": { "strings": "on" } for [php].

Performance

Measured on a real legacy project (19,000 PHP files, 3,200 of them application code) on a development machine:

Settings

Commands

• PHP Forge: Restart Language Server
• PHP Forge: Reindex Workspace
• PHP Forge: Show Output
• PHP Forge: Show Include Tree
• PHP Forge: Create Baseline / Update Baseline / Clear Baseline
• PHP Forge: Refresh SQL schema
• PHP Forge: Select PHP version
• PHP Forge: Migration report
• PHP Forge: Show impact of changed files / Deploy changed files

Using it with Intelephense or PHP Tools

Completions and diagnostics would be duplicated: PHP Forge offers to open those extensions so you can disable them for the workspace.

License

MIT. Bundles JetBrains phpstorm-stubs (Apache 2.0): see NOTICE.