Pretty Print Rules

Static analysis for PHP
The pretty printer that comes with PHP is designed to pretty print an AST-representation of a PHP-program according to a set of rules. It is not designed to return the exact same document that was parsed.

The following rules are used for pretty printing:

  • Expressions are printed on a single line.
  • Indentation is done for all nestings of statements, 2 spaces per nesting.
  • Control structures have a space between the keyword and the opening parenthesis.
  • Curly braces are printed if they appear in the source.
  • The opening curly brace of a statement is printed on the same line as the control structure.
  • The closing curly brace of a statement is printed on its own line, on the start of the indentation.
  • Function calls do not have a space between the name and the opening parenthesis.
  • Parameters to a function are separated by a space.
  • The include_* and require_* expressions do not have parentheses around their argument.

Notice that most of the rules follow the PEAR coding-standard.