PHP Tools for Visual Studio - Documentation

March 2025 (version 1.84)

We’re thrilled to announce the release of version 1.84, bringing powerful enhancements and seamless improvements to PHP in Visual Studio! This update improves full support for PHP 8.4, smarter type inference, refined formatting, and a significant boost to Laravel and Eloquent features. With optimized IntelliSense and crucial stability fixes, coding gets faster, smoother, and more intuitive. 🚀

Laravel & Eloquent Support

Laravel

  • Code completion for the Eloquent "magic", and Laravel-specific functions.
  • Extensible code completion through the special ide.json file.
  • Type resolution for Laravel service containers (app(), App::make()).
  • Completion for config keys in config(..), config()->string(..), Config::get(..), and others.
  • Completion of environment variables.
  • Completion of view attributes in special Laravel functions.
  • Completion of named routes in specific functions.
  • Completion of route parameter names in specific functions.
  • Completion of IDs from language translation files in specific functions.

Eloquent

  • Completing model columns in various Eloquent Query Builder methods. Columns are resolved from (what's defined first):
    • model class PHPDoc @property(s).
    • models Factory class definition() function.
    • using models table (if can be resolved), lookups migrations in database/migrations/ and Schema definitions.
  • Completing model dynamic fields.
  • Completing magic whereCOLUMN() functions.
  • Auto-completion for query builder methods, model columns, and factory attributes.
  • Improved return type inference for Model::query(), select(), and find(int).
  • Enhanced support for Eloquent local scopes, magic whereCOLUMN() methods, and @mixin<Builder>.

Code Analysis & Type Inference

  • Improved handling of static return types in traits.
  • Enhanced support for @mixin, template-type<>, and iterable type hints.
  • Fixed PHPDoc annotation parsing and improved @var handling inside conditional blocks.
  • Improved type inference for int and float, resolving issues with mixed types.
  • Respected @param and @var annotations when inferring types.
  • Better array unpacking type inferring.
  • Better foreach control variable type inferring for old Collection.
  • Respects @var annotation above if statement.
  • Better array_find() return type inferring.
  • Implemented support for callable type conversion.
  • Fixed implicit visibility checks, ensuring proper protected access handling.
  • Support for line comments in PHPDoc structured type names.

Code Navigation & IntelliSense

  • Fixing support for attributes above anonymous classes (formatting and language features).
  • Fixed hover and go-to-definition issues for class NAME and ?FQN syntax.
  • Improved inlay hints for methods defined via @mixin, new static(), and closures.
  • Corrected mouse hover issues and improved IntelliSense for PHP 8.4.
  • Resolved tooltip rendering issues in traits and anonymous classes.

PHP Project & Composer Improvements

  • Fixed incorrect composer package paths in indexing.
  • Improved handling of PHAR files in the project structure.
  • Avoided parsing non-PHP entries in PHAR archives to optimize performance.
  • Resolved memory leak issues related to PHP framework instances.

Configuration & Code Formatting

  • Added support for:
    • Blank lines around properties, fields, and enums.
    • Property hooks in property promotion.
    • Asymmetric visibility formatting.
    • PER defining blank lines and JavaScript backtick processor.
  • Improved blank line handling for anonymous classes.

Bug Fixes & Optimizations

  • Stability fixes.
  • Addressed performance optimizations, reducing unnecessary memory allocations.
  • Fixed indirect returns of static from traits.
  • Corrected array unpacking behavior.