#IDE Helper Generator for Laravel

Complete PHPDocs, directly from the source

This package generates helper files that enable your IDE to provide accurate autocompletion. Generation is done based on the files in your project, so they are always up-to-date.

It supports Laravel 8+ and PHP 7.3+

• Installation
• Usage
  • Automatic PHPDoc generation for Laravel Facades
  • Automatic PHPDocs for models
    • Model Directories
    • Ignore Models
    • Model Hooks
  • Automatic PHPDocs generation for Laravel Fluent methods
  • Auto-completion for factory builders
  • PhpStorm Meta for Container instances
• License

#Installation

Require this package with composer using the following command:

composer require --dev barryvdh/laravel-ide-helper

This package makes use of Laravels package auto-discovery mechanism, which means if you don't install dev dependencies in production, it also won't be loaded.

If for some reason you want manually control this:

• add the package to the extra.laravel.dont-discover key in composer.json, e.g.

  "extra": {
    "laravel": {
      "dont-discover": [
        "barryvdh/laravel-ide-helper"
      ]
    }
  }

• Add the following class to the providers array in config/app.php:

  Barryvdh\LaravelIdeHelper\IdeHelperServiceProvider::class,

  If you want to manually load it only in non-production environments, instead you can add this to your AppServiceProvider with the register() method:

  public function register()
  {
      if ($this->app->isLocal()) {
          $this->app->register(\Barryvdh\LaravelIdeHelper\IdeHelperServiceProvider::class);
      }
      // ...
  }

Note: Avoid caching the configuration in your development environment, it may cause issues after installing this package; respectively clear the cache beforehand via php artisan cache:clear if you encounter problems when running the commands

#Usage

Check out this Laracasts video for a quick introduction/explanation!

• php artisan ide-helper:generate - PHPDoc generation for Laravel Facades
• php artisan ide-helper:models - PHPDocs for models
• php artisan ide-helper:meta - PhpStorm Meta file

Note: You do need CodeComplice for Sublime Text: https://github.com/spectacles/CodeComplice

#Automatic PHPDoc generation for Laravel Facades

You can now re-generate the docs yourself (for future updates)

php artisan ide-helper:generate

Note: bootstrap/compiled.php has to be cleared first, so run php artisan clear-compiled before generating.

This will generate the file _ide_helper.php which is expected to be additionally parsed by your IDE for autocomplete. You can use the config filename to change its name.

You can configure your composer.json to do this each time you update your dependencies:

"scripts": {
    "post-update-cmd": [
        "Illuminate\\Foundation\\ComposerScripts::postUpdate",
        "@php artisan ide-helper:generate",
        "@php artisan ide-helper:meta"
    ]
},

You can also publish the config file to change implementations (ie. interface to specific class) or set defaults for --helpers.

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Barryvdh\LaravelIdeHelper\IdeHelperServiceProvider" --tag=config

The generator tries to identify the real class, but if it cannot be found, you can define it in the config file.

Some classes need a working database connection. If you do not have a default working connection, some facades will not be included. You can use an in-memory SQLite driver by adding the -M option.

You can choose to include helper files. This is not enabled by default, but you can override it with the --helpers (-H) option. The Illuminate/Support/helpers.php is already set up, but you can add/remove your own files in the config file.

#Automatic PHPDoc generation for macros and mixins

This package can generate PHPDocs for macros and mixins which will be added to the _ide_helper.php file.

But this only works if you use type hinting when declaring a macro.

Str::macro('concat', function(string $str1, string $str2) : string {
    return $str1 . $str2;
});

#Automatic PHPDocs for models

If you don't want to write your properties yourself, you can use the command php artisan ide-helper:models to generate PHPDocs, based on table columns, relations and getters/setters.

Note: this command requires a working database connection to introspect the table of each model

By default, you are asked to overwrite or write to a separate file (_ide_helper_models.php). You can write the comments directly to your Model file, using the --write (-W) option, or force to not write with --nowrite (-N).

Alternatively using the --write-mixin (-M) option will only add a mixin tag to your Model file, writing the rest in (_ide_helper_models.php). The class name will be different from the model, avoiding the IDE duplicate annoyance.

Please make sure to back up your models, before writing the info.

Writing to the models should keep the existing comments and only append new properties/methods. The existing PHPDoc is replaced, or added if not found. With the --reset (-R) option, the existing PHPDocs are ignored, and only the newly found columns/relations are saved as PHPDocs.

php artisan ide-helper:models "App\Models\Post"

/**
 * App\Models\Post
 *
 * @property integer $id
 * @property integer $author_id
 * @property string $title
 * @property string $text
 * @property \Illuminate\Support\Carbon $created_at
 * @property \Illuminate\Support\Carbon $updated_at
 * @property-read \User $author
 * @property-read \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Collection|\Comment[] $comments
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder|\App\Models\Post newModelQuery()
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder|\App\Models\Post newQuery()
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder|\App\Models\Post query()
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder|\App\Models\Post whereTitle($value)
 * @method static \Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Builder|\App\Models\Post forAuthors(\User ...$authors)
 * …
 */

With the --write-mixin (-M) option

/**
 * …
 * @mixin IdeHelperPost
 */

#Model Directories

By default, models in app/models are scanned. The optional argument tells what models to use (also outside app/models).

php artisan ide-helper:models "App\Models\Post" "App\Models\User"

You can also scan a different directory, using the --dir option (relative from the base path):

php artisan ide-helper:models --dir="path/to/models" --dir="app/src/Model"

You can publish the config file (php artisan vendor:publish) and set the default directories.

#Ignore Models

Models can be ignored using the --ignore (-I) option

php artisan ide-helper:models --ignore="App\Models\Post,App\Models\User"

Or can be ignored by setting the ignored_models config

'ignored_models' => [
    App\Post::class,
    Api\User::class
],

#Magic where* methods

Eloquent allows calling where<Attribute> on your models, e.g. Post::whereTitle(…) and automatically translates this to e.g. Post::where('title', '=', '…').

If for some reason it's undesired to have them generated (one for each column), you can disable this via config write_model_magic_where and setting it to false.

#Magic *_count properties

You may use the ::withCount method to count the number results from a relationship without actually loading them. Those results are then placed in attributes following the <columname>_count convention.

By default, these attributes are generated in the phpdoc. You can turn them off by setting the config write_model_relation_count_properties to false.

#Generics annotations

Laravel 9 introduced generics annotations in DocBlocks for collections. PhpStorm 2022.3 and above support the use of generics annotations within @property and @property-read declarations in DocBlocks, e.g. Collection<User> instead of Collection|User[].

These can be disabled by setting the config use_generics_annotations to false.

#Support @comment based on DocBlock

In order to better support IDEs, relations and getters/setters can also add a comment to a property like table columns. Therefore a custom docblock @comment is used:

class Users extends Model
{
    /**
     * @comment Get User's full name
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function getFullNameAttribute(): string
    {
        return $this->first_name . ' ' .$this->last_name ;
    }
}
 
// => after generate models
 
/**
 * App\Models\Users
 *
 * @property-read string $full_name Get User's full name
 * …
 */

#Dedicated Eloquent Builder methods

A new method to the eloquent models was added called newEloquentBuilder Reference where we can add support for creating a new dedicated class instead of using local scopes in the model itself.

If for some reason it's undesired to have them generated (one for each column), you can disable this via config write_model_external_builder_methods and setting it to false.

#Unsupported or custom database types

Common column types (e.g. varchar, integer) are correctly mapped to PHP types (string, int).

But sometimes you may want to use custom column types in your database like geography, jsonb, citext, bit, etc. which may throw an "Unknown database type"-Exception.

For those special cases, you can map them via the config custom_db_types. Example:

'custom_db_types' => [
    'mysql' => [
        'geography' => 'array',
        'point' => 'array',
    ],
    'postgresql' => [
        'jsonb' => 'string',
        '_int4' => 'array',
    ],
],

#Custom Relationship Types

If you are using relationships not built into Laravel you will need to specify the name and returning class in the config to get proper generation.

'additional_relation_types' => [
    'externalHasMany' => \My\Package\externalHasMany::class
],

Found relationships will typically generate a return value based on the name of the relationship.

If your custom relationships don't follow this traditional naming scheme you can define its return type manually. The available options are many and morphTo.

'additional_relation_return_types' => [
    'externalHasMultiple' => 'many'
],

#Model Hooks

If you need additional information on your model from sources that are not handled by default, you can hook in to the generation process with model hooks to add extra information on the fly. Simply create a class that implements ModelHookInterface and add it to the model_hooks array in the config:

'model_hooks' => [
   MyCustomHook::class,
],

The run method will be called during generation for every model and receives the current running ModelsCommand and the current Model, e.g.:

class MyCustomHook implements ModelHookInterface
{
    public function run(ModelsCommand $command, Model $model): void
    {
        if (! $model instanceof MyModel) {
            return;
        }
 
        $command->setProperty('custom', 'string', true, false, 'My custom property');
        $command->unsetMethod('method');
        $command->setMethod('method', $command->getMethodType($model, '\Some\Class'), ['$param']);
    }
}

/**
 * MyModel
 *
 * @property integer $id
 * @property-read string $custom

#Automatic PHPDocs generation for Laravel Fluent methods

If you need PHPDocs support for Fluent methods in migration, for example

$table->string("somestring")->nullable()->index();

After publishing vendor, simply change the include_fluent line in your config/ide-helper.php file into:

'include_fluent' => true,

Then run php artisan ide-helper:generate, you will now see all Fluent methods recognized by your IDE.

#Auto-completion for factory builders

If you would like the factory()->create() and factory()->make() methods to return the correct model class, you can enable custom factory builders with the include_factory_builders line in your config/ide-helper.php file. Deprecated for Laravel 8 or latest.

'include_factory_builders' => true,

For this to work, you must also publish the PhpStorm Meta file (see below).

#PhpStorm Meta for Container instances

It's possible to generate a PhpStorm meta file to add support for factory design pattern. For Laravel, this means we can make PhpStorm understand what kind of object we are resolving from the IoC Container. For example, events will return an Illuminate\Events\Dispatcher object, so with the meta file you can call app('events') and it will autocomplete the Dispatcher methods.

php artisan ide-helper:meta

app('events')->fire();
\App::make('events')->fire();
 
/** @var \Illuminate\Foundation\Application $app */
$app->make('events')->fire();
 
// When the key is not found, it uses the argument as class name
app('App\SomeClass');
// Also works with
app(App\SomeClass::class);

Note: You might need to restart PhpStorm and make sure .phpstorm.meta.php is indexed.

Note: When you receive a FatalException: class not found, check your config (for example, remove S3 as cloud driver when you don't have S3 configured. Remove Redis ServiceProvider when you don't use it).

You can change the generated filename via the config meta_filename. This can be useful for cases where you want to take advantage of PhpStorm's support of the directory .phpstorm.meta.php/: all files placed there are parsed, should you want to provide additional files to PhpStorm.

#License

The Laravel IDE Helper Generator is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license