CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpdocpreconditions
Olle Härstedt
Olle Härstedt

Reputation: 4020

PHPDoc preconditions

How to tag preconditions with PHPDoc? I have an object, and before calling a function another function must have been called:

$myObject = new MyClass();
$myObject->mustDoThis();
$myObject->beforeThis();

So the documentation for beforeThis() would look like:

/**
 * @precondition mustDoThis() must be called before this function is
 */

Or is there another way around this? Perhaps a @throw clause would be enough.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 460

Answers (2)

Ungureanu Alexandru
Ungureanu Alexandru

Reputation: 1

According to the book "Clean Code" written by Robert C. Martin, the scenario you have described is a temporally coupled pair and you should solve it by making a new method which calls those methods in the right order.

The client shouldn't know in which order should call methods so encapsulate the logic.

Upvotes: 0

Flatline
Flatline

Reputation: 1036

As far as I know, there's no standard @precondition or @postcondition tags for PhpDoc but I use them anyway as it is a nice way to hint the developer implementing the class/interface/trait.

Upvotes: 2

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