How useful is PHP CodeSniffer? Code Standards Enforcement in General? [closed]

Answer 1

Note that if you are using Eclipse or Zend IDE you can benefit from automatic tools that makes the respect of a standard less costly. You can also use a continuous integration tool like Hudson or PHPUndercontrol.

• PDT is a cool editor for PHP
• PDT-Tools are some plugins for PDT with an automatic formatting tool
• DTLK (Dynamic Toolkit Library) can be used to launch some external scripts to check your files.

You can also have a look at PHP Checkstyle which I think is easier to configure (disclaimer : I've worked on it)

Some other tools are listed on the "documentation" page of the web site.

Answer 2

Are you providing PEAR packages for public distribution thru PEAR/PECL? If so then you probably want to stick to PEAR conventions.

Otherwise, I can't see it being worth the big refactor. The biggest thing is agreeing upon a coding standard for your team... doesn't have to be PEAR's standard... just make sure there is some standard convention enforced.

For instance, I'm a fan of the

function foo () {

format vs the PEAR standard..

function foo ()
{

Bottom line, don't worry too much about conforming to their standard if its going to be a ton of work, especially if you aren't putting the packages on PECL.