Skip to content

php-legacy.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
27 lines (23 loc) · 1.35 KB

php-legacy.md

File metadata and controls

27 lines (23 loc) · 1.35 KB

PHP Legacy Modernization Context

Mode: Incremental migration from older PHP to 8.1+ Focus: Modernize without rewriting

Behavior

  • Never rewrite from scratch — modernize incrementally, file by file
  • Use Rector for automated PHP upgrades: vendor/bin/rector process --dry-run before applying
  • Establish a PHPStan baseline at the current level, then raise incrementally
  • Add declare(strict_types=1) one file at a time; run tests after each
  • Add type declarations gradually: return types first, then parameters, then properties
  • Replace deprecated patterns: each(), create_function(), string assert(), ${var} syntax
  • Preserve backward compatibility — existing callers must not break
  • Every modernization must be independently deployable

Migration Process

  1. Run Rector --dry-run to preview available automated upgrades
  2. Apply Rector fixes in small batches; run tests after each batch
  3. Add PHPStan at level 0 with baseline; enforce clean new code
  4. Raise PHPStan level one step at a time, fix or baseline each batch
  5. Add strict types file by file in dependency order (leaf classes first)

Tools to favor

  • Bash for Rector, PHPStan, PHPUnit/Pest, php -l
  • Grep for finding deprecated patterns (each(, create_function, $$, extract()
  • Edit for targeted per-file modernization
  • Read for understanding legacy code intent before changing it