WordPress-Coding-Standards/README.md

### WordPress Coding Standards for PHP_CodeSniffer

From the [PHP_CodeSniffer](http://pear.php.net/package/PHP_CodeSniffer) (phpcs) package information on PEAR:

> PHP_CodeSniffer tokenises PHP, JavaScript and CSS files and detects violations of a defined set of coding standards.

This project is a collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) to validate code developed for WordPress.

This is a fork of the WordPress Coding Standards project from [Urban Giraffe](http://urbangiraffe.com/articles/wordpress-codesniffer-standard/) published in 2009, at which time Matt Mullenweg gave it a [shoutout](http://ma.tt/2009/04/wordpress-codesniffer/). A couple years later, the project was picked up by [Chris Adams](http://chrisadams.me.uk/) who published it to a [repo](https://github.com/mrchrisadams/WordPress-Coding-Standards) on GitHub in May 2011. Initially Chris added a missing `ruleset.xml` file which prevented the rules from being detected by phpcs. Since that time there have been around a dozen [contributions](https://github.com/mrchrisadams/WordPress-Coding-Standards/commits/master) to improve the project. It is surprising that there has not been more community involvement in developing these sniffs, as it is a very useful tool to ensure code quality and adherence to coding conventions, especially the official [WordPress Coding Standards](http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Coding_Standards) which are currently only partially accounted for by the sniffs. [X-Team](http://x-team.com/) has forked the project and is dedicating resources to further develop it and make it even more useful to the WordPress community at large.

See [CONTRIBUTING](CONTRIBUTING.md), including information about [unit testing](CONTRIBUTING.md#unit-testing).

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards.png?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards)

### How to use this

To install PHP_CodeSniffer and the WordPress standard(s):

```bash
cd ~/path/to/install/dir
git clone https://github.com/squizlabs/PHP_CodeSniffer.git phpcs
git clone https://github.com/WordPress-Coding-Standards/WordPress-Coding-Standards.git wpcs
cd phpcs
scripts/phpcs --config-set installed_paths ../wpcs
```

Then edit your `$PATH` environment variable to include the location of the `phpcs` script.
For example, add the following to your `~/.bashrc` (or `~/.profile` or `~/.bash_profile`)

```sh
export PATH="$PATH:~/path/to/install/dir/phpcs/scripts/"
```

Reload your terminal and then run the PHP code sniffer commandline tool on a given file, for example `wp-cron.php`.

    phpcs --standard=WordPress -s wp-cron.php

You can use this to sniff individual files, or use different flags to recursively scan all the directories in a project. This command will show you each file it's scanning, and how many errors it's finding:

    phpcs -p -s -v --standard=WordPress .

Output will like this:

    Registering sniffs in WordPress standard... DONE (11 sniffs registered)
    Creating file list... DONE (705 files in queue)
    Processing index.php [47 tokens in 31 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (2 errors, 0 warnings)
    Processing wp-activate.php [750 tokens in 102 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (47 errors, 2 warnings)
    Processing admin-ajax.php [14523 tokens in 1475 lines]... DONE in 2 seconds (449 errors, 44 warnings)
    Processing admin-footer.php [183 tokens in 43 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (19 errors, 0 warnings)
    Processing admin-functions.php [43 tokens in 16 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (2 errors, 0 warnings)
    Processing admin-header.php [1619 tokens in 196 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (110 errors, 1 warnings)
    Processing admin-post.php [144 tokens in 33 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (8 errors, 0 warnings)
    Processing admin.php [1906 tokens in 238 lines]... DONE in 1 second (128 errors, 1 warnings)
    Processing async-upload.php [623 tokens in 70 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (41 errors, 0 warnings)
    Processing comment.php [2241 tokens in 289 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (110 errors, 3 warnings)
    Processing colors-classic-rtl.css [517 tokens in 1 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (0 errors, 0 warnings)
    Processing colors-classic-rtl.dev.css [661 tokens in 79 lines]... DONE in < 1 second (0 errors, 0 warnings)
    Processing colors-classic.css ^C

    ... and so on...

If you are using **PhpStorm**, please see “[PHP Code Sniffer with WordPress Coding Standards Integration in PhpStorm](http://confluence.jetbrains.com/display/PhpStorm/WordPress+Development+using+PhpStorm#WordPressDevelopmentusingPhpStorm-PHPCodeSnifferwithWordPressCodingStandardsIntegrationinPhpStorm)” from their docs.

### Subset standards

The WordPress standard encompases a superset of the sniffs that the WordPress community may need. It includes sniffs for **Core** standards, but then it also includes sniffs for the [WordPress **VIP** coding requirements](http://vip.wordpress.com/documentation/code-review-what-we-look-for/), as well as some best practice **Extras**. If you just use the `WordPress` standard, you'll get everything. But if you're not working in the WordPress VIP environment, for example, this won't good for you. So there are additional standards included in this project, standards which include a subset of the sniffs in the `WordPress` standard. You can use all of the following as standard names when invoking `phpcs`:

 * `WordPress-Core`: Sniffs that seek to implement the [Core coding standards](http://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards/) and go no further.
 * `WordPress-VIP`: Core sniffs plus sniffs specifically implemented to check against the [VIP coding requirements](http://vip.wordpress.com/documentation/code-review-what-we-look-for/)
 * `WordPress-Extra`: Core sniffs plus any extras that are best practices but could be controversial.

### Using the WordPress standard on projects

Lots of WordPress's own code doesn't conform to these standards, so running this on your entire codebase will generate lots, and lots of errors.

Instead, try installing the WordPress standard, then invoking it from a project specific CodeSniffer ruleset instead, like in the supplied example file.

Remove the `.example` suffix from `project.ruleset.xml` and run it in your
project root, pointing at a given file:

    mv project.ruleset.xml.example project.ruleset.xml
    phpcs -s -v -p --standard=./project.ruleset.xml a-sample-file.php

A tiny subset of the options available to codesniffer have been used in this example, and there's much more that can be done in a `ruleset.xml` file. Check the [phpcs documentation](http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.php.php-codesniffer.php) to see a [fully annotated example to build upon](http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.php.php-codesniffer.coding-standard-tutorial.php).

### Troubleshooting

Check your `PATH` if it includes new binaries added into the pear directories. You may have to add `:/usr/local/php/bin` before you can call `phpcs` on the command line.

Remember that you can see where PEAR is looking for stuff, and putting things, by calling `pear config-show`. This is how to find where the `phpcs` binary was added, and where the PEAR library is by default.

### MIT License

```
Copyright (c) 2009-2014 John Godley and contributors.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.
```