PHP syntax check as you type with Emacs

For those who have to code in PHP, there’s a nice feature in Emacs that makes your coding horror times less stressing and helps you avoid typos and similar dumb errors.

Emacs 22.1 comes with flymake mode, a nice tool that makes syntax checking while you type out the file by highlighting the lines with errors and displays the error messages.

You can enable flymake to check PHP syntax by adding the following code on your .emacs or whatever Emacs customizations file you use:

;; Flymake PHP Extension
(require 'flymake)
(unless (fboundp 'flymake-php-init)
  (defun flymake-php-init ()
    (let* ((temp-file (flymake-init-create-temp-buffer-copy
               'flymake-create-temp-inplace))
       (local-file (file-relative-name
            temp-file
            (file-name-directory buffer-file-name))))
      (list "php" (list "-f" local-file "-l")))))
(let ((php-ext-re "\.php[345]?\'")
      (php-error-re
       "\(?:Parse\|Fatal\) error: \(.\) in \(.\) on line \([0-9]+\)"))
  (unless (assoc php-ext-re flymake-allowed-file-name-masks)
    (add-to-list 'flymake-allowed-file-name-masks
         (list php-ext-re
                       'flymake-php-init
                       'flymake-simple-cleanup
                       'flymake-get-real-file-name))
    (add-to-list 'compilation-error-regexp-alist-alist
         (list 'compilation-php
                       php-error-re  2 3 nil nil))
    (add-to-list 'compilation-error-regexp-alist 'compilation-php)
    (add-to-list 'flymake-err-line-patterns
         (list php-error-re 2 3 nil 1))))
;; add php flymake support
(add-hook 'php-mode-hook (lambda () (flymake-mode t)))

Its very nice to have on the fly syntax checking.

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The PHP syntax check as you type with Emacs by Gabriel Saldaña, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Mexico License.

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