PHPDoc, code completion and iterations with PHP

Let’s start with an example

class MyClass
{
	function hello($name)
	{
		return "Hello " . $name . "\n";
	}
}

When we want to use this class and we type:

$obj = new MyClass;
echo $obj->       <------ code completion appear in our IDE suggesting hello function

But now we put a simple singleton function in MyClass

class MyClass
{
	private static $_instance = null;
	function singleton()
	{
		if (is_null(self::$_instance)) {
			self::$_instance = new self;
		}
		return self::$_instance;
	}

	function hello($name)
	{
		return "Hello " . $name . "\n";
	}
}

And we use our singleton:

echo MyClass::singleton()->     <---- ups nothing happens

That’s because our IDE doesn’t know the return type of our singleton function. Because of that we are going to help to our IDE with a bit of PHPDoc magic.

        private static $_instance = null;
	/**
	 * @return MyClass
	 */
	function singleton()
	{
		if (is_null(self::$_instance)) {
			self::$_instance = new self;
		}
		return self::$_instance;
	}

And now our IDE will help us.

And now something a bit different. We have other class:

class MyClass2
{
	static function getAll()
	{
		return array(new MyClass, new MyClass, new MyClass);
	}
}

According to PHPDoc manual we can hint getAll function with @return array[int]MyClass but code completion doesn’t work, at least on my tests (please tell me I’m wrong because it’s the best solution).
So I need to use a small trick to get the autocompletion:

foreach (MyClass2::getAll() as $row) {
	/* @var $row MyClass */
	echo $row->     <------------------- code completion appear
}

I’ve tried with @return array[int]MyClass and also using SPL Iterators but that’s the only way I know to ensure autocompletion.

Other possible solution is use a dummy cast function in MyClass. It’s a bit ugly solution but also works always:

         /**
	 * @param MyClass $cls
	 * @return MyClass
	 */
	static function cast($cls)
	{
		return $cls;
	}

Now We can use:

foreach (MyClass2::getAll() as $row) {
	echo MyClass::cast($row)->hello("Gonzalo"); // code completion works
}