Introduction to PhpStorm
PhpStorm is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) which is a commercial and a cross-platform one built for PHP by the company called JetBrains which is a Czech Republic-based one. It is an editor that provides for scripting HTML, PHP, and JavaScript code. Some of the versions it supports in PHP are 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 till 7.4 also taking care of coroutines, generators, list in foreach, the finally, closures, namespaces, and traits. It also consists of a complete SQL editor with query results that are editable.
PhpStorm is written in Java language. Users can install additional plugins that are explicitly created for PhpStorm or can also customize by writing their own plugins. It also has an option to interact with external communication sources like XDebug. There is another popular IDE called the WebStorm and this PhpStorm includes all its features which include support for databases and PHP. Also, note that PhpStorm comes at a cost.
How do PhpStorm works?
First, we need to configure the PhpStorm informing it of the PHP version we are using and where these PHP components are reportedly stored.
- If we are working in the local environment, then we have to follow an AMP package steps to ready our environment.
- It supports the Docker container.
- It also supports Vagrant.
It includes a lot of functionalities and features which we shall cover in the below section. Basically, IDE’s are used because they can handle big codes with testing and debugging tools and hence their maintenance becomes easy. Hence used to write big applications or develop big PHP projects in general.
Features of PhpStorm
Below are the features of PhpStorm:
- Consists of the entire development environment: For the developers, it is easy to work with multiple programming languages such as PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc,. PhpStorm includes all these also providing entire code completion and highlighting the syntax with support. Hence a preferable choice among the developers. It consists of a code editor rich in formatting configuration for extended code and checking errors on-the-fly. It can be used in conjunction with all the mentioned PHP versions like both legacy and modern PHP related projects.
- Supports multiple Framework in PHP: If you are working with PHP frameworks then PhpStorm is the one you should go for. Because of the integration, it provides other frameworks like CakePHP, Laravel, Yii, and Symfony2.
- Support for the database: PhpStorm consists of a lot of inbuilt tools and features for code assistance to work along with SQL and other databases in the projects. It is able to connect with the required database and perform all actions like editing table data, query execution, and also analysis of the schemas with UML diagrams.
- Support for version control: PhpStorm supports fully a huge range of version control systems which majorly includes Git and GitHub which the developers can branch out and merge their code within this IDE. They also include good support for FTP which allows us to upload code to a remote server in high speed typically within a few seconds. Supports autocompletion of the code as it provides finalization of methods, classes, variable names, keywords in PHP, and also a few of the common names used for variables and other fields based on their type. Supports different kinds of web application frameworks like Drupal, Symfony, Zend, etc,.
- Testing and Debugging: This can debug the code even in case of zero-configuration and hence it is very easy. We can develop and run unit tests from this IDE using PHPUnit. There is XDebug and Zend Debugger using which also we can check the inclusive reports of PhpStorm. It supports PhpDoc too. This IDE provides suggestions on code completion based on annotations like @method, @property, and @var. Also, it can detect duplicate code. Code smells are checked on the fly by use of PHP Code Sniffer. Certain templates like Smarty and Twig can be edited which also support the highlighting of syntax errors, completion of attributes, inserts the paired braces automatically, also inserts closing tags and quotes, etc,.
- Supports PHAR: It is a package format which enables to distribute applications and libraries by making a bundle of PHP script files and other resource types all into a single zipped file. They can be in either of tar, zip, or a custom PHAR format. Supports MVC view which is a design pattern for the application and it distinguishes the business logic with the application data from the view. It is used for Symfony and Yii frameworks.
Benefits of PhpStorm
Below are the benefits :
- They can scan projects at a quick speed, and they are also very accurate. Hence the user can execute auto compilation which is based on present functions and classes fast.
- Provides a huge range of project search options.
- Search options are wide and flexible. It can be arranged to be searched according to the file, directory, and various other options.
- Provides a good tracing option for inheritance.
- It has a fine comparison tool that is built-in and has syntax highlighting.
- Provision of useful alerts which usually appear as a popup over the editor to indicate that something may not be right or not configured properly.
- It provides smart code navigation which helps in cases where we need to navigate from one code block to another or from one file to another.
- It also provides safe and fast refactoring whenever we want to rename something or reset our code or perform some other operations like transferring, removing, push/pull code members up/down, etc,.
Conclusion
As seen above, PhpStorm is the most widely used IDE for handling big PHP projects built using the Java language. Its functionality can be extended by including or writing our own plugins, and also connecting with external sources for debugging purposes. We hope that you have got a brief idea of the various functionalities which can be integrated to build your application on PHP better by using PhpStorm.
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