Inside the Briefcase
Top 7 Tools for Analyzing and Parsing Your PHP Code
September 30, 2015 No CommentsFeatured article by James E. Hein, Web Developer and Independent Technology Author
PHP is a powerful scripting language that is especially designed for website development. The scripting language powers everything from millions of simple blog sites to the most popular websites such as Facebook, Digg, and many others. Most website developers prefer using PHP language to other server side scripting languages such as Ruby and Python.
The reason for its immense popularity in the online community is that it is open source and allows development of dynamic websites with flexible features and robust security options. There are so many different PHP tools available online that finding the best ones is a difficult task indeed.
In this article, we have listed top 7 tools for analyzing and parsing your PHP code that are popular among the web developers.
PHP Parser is a parsing tool that is built on top of PHP. The tool is compatible with PHP versions from 5.2 to 5.6. It is great for performing static analysis of the code. Moreover, web developers can use the tool to modify the code of any application that deals with code in a logical manner.
This tool utilizes AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) to analyze and parse the PHP code. Web developers can use AST to statically analyze the code to detect security issues and other errors in the code. In addition, the tool can convert the AST back to PHP code without any difficulty. This makes it possible to perform advanced code pre-processing such as automatically porting the code to older versions of PHP.
PHP Sandbox is a full PHP 5.3.2+ sandbox class that uses a PHP parser tool to detect problems in the code. The tool prevents sandboxed code from running malicious and unsafe code. It allows you to modify the internal PHP code and optimize it for increased speed and security. There are many other features of the tool some of which are briefly listed below:
– Modify magic constants and superglobals and set your own values to the sandboxed code
– Finegrained blacklisting, and whitelisting
– Intercept and validate call backs against functions blacklists and whitelists
– Modify get_defined_* and get_declared_* function so that it displays allowed classes, functions, etc.
– Modify internal PHP code to make them stable and secure
– Test custom sandbox configuration
– Set permission for class declarations, function creation, constant definitions
– Specify validation error handler that would intercept validation errors and handle them with custom logic
– Access parsed, generated codes for further analysis
You can visit the website for complete list of features with examples.
PHP Checkstyle is an open source tool that allows PHP programmers to implement standard coding conventions. The PHP tool allows web developers to easily check the input source code. Using the tool, web developers can find out any deviation for the specified standard codes.
The PHP coding tool is best for newbie programmers that want a simple way to analyze and parse PHP code. The reports are easy to understand and short.
PHP Mess Detector is a relatively new PHP analysis and parsing tool that has become very popular among the web developers. The tool analyzes the PHP codes to identify various bugs and problems. It detects suboptimal code, possible bugs, unused parameters, properties, methods, and overcomplicated expressions.
PHP mass detector uses multiple rule sets that are compared against the PHP source code. At the moment, the tool is at its nascent stage and includes a limited set of pre defined rules. However, it will support more standard rules with further releases.
PHP Textile is a powerful Textile markup language parser for PHP. It takes readable and lightweight markup language and converts it into HTML. It can generate complex pages including quotes, headers, lists, figures, and tables.
This PHP code analysis and parsing tool processes texts in units of blocks of text that are separated by a blank line. The tool supports automatic conversions of special characters that are automatically converted to their Unicode or HTML equivalent.
PHP Analyzer is another great PHP analysis and parsing tool. You have to pay a certain fee to use the tool. However, the cost is more than worth it as it will save time and even money in debugging the PHP code.
The analyzer tool works within type, flow and other similar analysis where the output is in the form of a detailed report that shows how to improve coding and manage the bugs at the same time. Some of the advanced features of PHP Analyzer include the following:
– Reverse Abstract Interpretation – makes the process more efficient by pruning paths from the analysis
– Interprodecural Dataflow Analysis – identify problems that cross function, method, class, and even boundaries
– Framework Intelligence – implement different PHP frameworks such as Laravel or Symfony2 that provides even deeper understanding of modern coding conventions, and offers detailed comprehensive results
– Design Pattern Intelligence – understand different idioms of PHP code, and implement them into the analysis
Other ways that the PHP tool can help in analyzing and parsing the PHP code include call verification, request data validation, property validation, deprecation checks, access visibility verification, variable path verification, variable existence validation, reach ability check, deadlock detection, and much more.
PHP Markdown is in fact a library package that includes PHP Markdown Extra and PHP Markdown parser tool. It is an impressive text to HTML conversion tool for web developers. It supports simple and easy to read text format that it automatically converts into a valid XHTML.
For any further technical assistance related to PHP development, you can always contact PHP professionals. To make your search hassle-free, I have listed some of the leading web developing companies which are providing related services:
1. TIS India
2. Tech4sys
In the end, the above were just some of the most useful tools for analyzing and parsing your PHP code. Most of the above tools are for free that you can use without paying anything. Moreover these tools have short learning curve, so you won’t need to spend much time on getting started and acquainted with the tools.
Author Bio:
James E. Hein is a web developer with 10 years of experience. He has immense interest and knowledge in the technology area. He is also working as a strategist in projects related to business and technology – further enriching his writing contributions.
