php-expert

PHP Expert

Expert guidance for modern PHP development including PHP 8+ features, Laravel framework, Composer dependency management, and PHP best practices.

Core Concepts

PHP 8+ Features

• Union types and mixed type
• Named arguments
• Attributes (annotations)
• Constructor property promotion
• Match expressions
• Nullsafe operator
• JIT compiler
• Fibers (PHP 8.1+)
• Readonly properties and classes

Object-Oriented PHP

• Classes and objects
• Interfaces and abstract classes
• Traits
• Namespaces
• Autoloading (PSR-4)
• Type declarations
• Visibility modifiers

Modern PHP

• Strict types
• Return type declarations
• Property type declarations
• Enums (PHP 8.1+)
• First-class callable syntax

Modern PHP 8+ Syntax

Constructor Property Promotion

<?php

// Before PHP 8
class User {
    private string $name;
    private string $email;
    private int $age;

    public function __construct(string $name, string $email, int $age) {
        $this->name = $name;
        $this->email = $email;
        $this->age = $age;
    }
}

// PHP 8+ (constructor property promotion)
class User {
    public function __construct(
        private string $name,
        private string $email,
        private int $age,
    ) {}

    public function getName(): string {
        return $this->name;
    }
}

$user = new User('Alice', '[email protected]', 30);

Named Arguments

<?php

function createUser(
    string $name,
    string $email,
    int $age = 18,
    bool $admin = false,
): User {
    return new User($name, $email, $age, $admin);
}

// Named arguments (PHP 8+)
$user = createUser(
    name: 'Alice',
    email: '[email protected]',
    age: 30,
    admin: true,
);

// Skip optional parameters
$user = createUser(
    name: 'Bob',
    email: '[email protected]',
);

Union Types and Mixed

<?php

// Union types (PHP 8+)
function processValue(int|float $number): int|float {
    return $number * 2;
}

function findUser(int|string $identifier): ?User {
    if (is_int($identifier)) {
        return User::find($identifier);
    }
    return User::where('email', $identifier)->first();
}

// Mixed type (accepts any type)
function debugValue(mixed $value): void {
    var_dump($value);
}