PHP for Visual Studio, AI, IntelliSense - July 2023

Author by Jakub Misek
July 10, 2023 7 minutes
PHP for Visual Studio, AI, IntelliSense - July 2023

Announcing availability of PHP Tools v1.74 - for Visual Studio 2019 and Visual Studio 2022. The update introduces exciting new features!

IntelliPHP

Introducing AI-powered inline code predictions enhancing productivity and code development experience for PHP. Devsense's IntelliPHP leverages machine learning to provide intelligent code predictions. As you type, the extension suggests relevant code completions and shows them as grey text in your editor. This feature helps you write code faster and reduces the time spent on manual typing.

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The code predictions work completely offline, and do not send or receive any data to Internet.

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Confirm the suggestion with TAB key, or just keep typing and it adapts. Cancel the suggestion with ESC key.

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Security: The AI suggestions work completely offline, they don't send or receive any data to Internet, and they don't store any data locally either.

To disable/enable the feature, go to Tools/Options, Text Editor/PHP/IntelliPHP.

Note, the feature is available for Visual Studio 2022 and separately for Visual Studio Code at marketplace.visualstudio.com.

New IntelliSense Features

IntelliSense & IteratorIterator

IteratorIterator and RecursiveIteratorIterator are extended with generic type argument TInner, @mixin TInner, and their __construct() infers this TInner. Therefore, IntelliSense knows the inner iterator type and so it can provide inner iterator's members. (#1613)

IntelliSense & @phpstan-type, @psalm-type, @phpstan-import-type

Since now, we have a basic support for local type aliasing.

IntelliSense & Traits with Generics

Newly, trait use can be annotated with @use doc comment to specify the trait's generic arguments (#840), i.e.:

class MyClass {
    /** @use MyTrait<int, string> */
    use MyTrait;
}

IntelliSense & static Type

We have reimplemented the internals and improved type analysis for various cases involving use of static and $this within traits, protected properties, and class inheritance in general. Moreover generic arguments and trait members are resolved better with more inherited type information (#931).

Other IntelliSense Features

  • @phpstan-type and @phpstan-import-type are supported (#1543).
  • phpstan.neon (and .dist alternatives) in containing directories processed; supporting their global type aliases (phpstan.neon file's "typeAliases" setting).
  • Handling Collection<TValue>, Iterator<TInner> correctly.
  • Undefined properties accessed with magic __get() reported with lower severity.
  • Fixes trait adaptation and class inheritance analysis. Classes with complex inheritance with trait use with adaptation are analysed correctly giving unseful insights about missing method implementation.
  • Fixes control-flow analysis of certain try/finally blocks.
  • Improves Laravel IntelliSense.
  • Type inferring in the context of is_a() analyzed correctly.
  • Less falsy warnings for non-static methods called statically in case there is __callStatic() magic method.
  • New quick refactorings through code actions.
  • Updated integrated PHP manual and localizations.
  • match, fn, and interface are not reported as syntax errors when within a qualified name (PHP 8.0+).
  • PHP 8.2 standalone true, false, and null type names. (#338)
  • Fixed a few type inferring cases.
  • Fixed reporting functions annotated with @ignore tag as unknown.
  • Type hinting through /** @var */ above if fixed.
  • Fixed check of define(). (#340)
  • Fixed issue causing removal of new lines when formatting after abstract method. #1525
  • Arrow functions now respect php.format.rules.spaceWithinDeclParens to add spaces within parentheses. #1536
  • Fixed unwanted space when function is named as keyword #335
  • Do not increase indentation if previous sibling node ends on the same line #333
  • Fix of array items aliging when keys are not simple literals #1602

Refactoring

Trait function members are resolved in semantic highlighting, finding references, code lenses with method overrides, and rename refactoring.

Stability Fixes

  • Memory leak when having .phar files in the solution has been fixed.
Jakub Misek