Ten PHP compilation tools to improve development efficiency_PHP Tutorial

When we often have to deal with boring and repetitive tasks such as manual code testing and deployment, we often feel frustrated. However, we have always strived to be efficient, as the DRY principle says (Translator: DRY=Dont Repeat Yourself, non-repetition principle, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself). So why not apply this principle to other life cycles of software development so that these tasks can be completed efficiently, smoothly and automatically? This article will introduce you to 10 PHP development tools that can help you achieve just that. This gives you more time to focus on building better web pages.

　1. PHPUnit

Testing is a very important part of software development, but many developers only give very little time to testing because this work is indeed quite time-consuming, boring and error-prone. In order to solve the above problems, automated testing tools allow developers to write a series of test scripts that can be easily executed and executed according to scheduled tasks. These automated testing tools usually provide test reports, which describe the results of each test in detail. PHP developers have a pretty good testing framework PHPUNIT in terms of automated testing. Based on very popular test-driven development methods, such as xUnit, PHPUNIT allows developers to use PHP syntax to write test cases, and then use very simple command line tools to execute the tests. You can even integrate PHPUNIT with some continuous integration tools such as phpUnderControl (http://phpundercontrol.org/), which will be discussed later in this article. If you are not familiar with phpunit, you can check out the previous article Use PHPUnit to Implement Unit Testing in Your PHP Development (http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore052510.php3), which details how to use phpunit.

　2. Phing

As WEB development projects become more and more complex, developers are faced with a host of deployment tasks, which are not just as simple as transferring files from the developer's machine to the production server. For example, avoiding uploading development environment files, such as image templates, processing permissions and parameter configurations of server-specified files, such as username and password, and how to recover as soon as possible when a change error occurs, are all issues that developers often encounter. To solve these problems, developers use specialized build tools that make the file transfer process more efficient because it only synchronizes files that have changed. Build tools can also be easily customized to the deployment environment. If you haven't taken advantage of a build tool yet, take a look at Phing, (http://phing.info/) which is a build tool based on Apache Ant. It supports all operating systems, can be easily configured using XML syntax, can be integrated with version control tools like CVS, SVN, etc., and can even create PEAR packages from your custom libraries.

　3. GitHub

I have mentioned many times the benefits of using version control tools. Version control can bring many benefits to a project, including the ability to create experimental branches of code, roll back unwanted changes, see which team members have recently changed a file, and monitor progress through logs. Although there are many open source version control tools, Git is currently my favorite. The rise of Git is largely due to the GitHub (http://github.com/) website, which provides third-party hosting services, which provides developers with a series of hosting services. GitHub meets the needs of developers and even provides hosting services for open source projects. With over a million hosted applications now on it, GitHub provides developers with a valuable service without having to spend a lot of money and time looking for third-party hosting services.

　4. FirePHP

Many developers are very familiar with the FireFox plug-in Firebug, which allows you to easily check the HTML, CSS and Javascript syntax issues of a web page. Using FirePHP (http://www.firephp.org/), you can also use a FireBug-like interface to check for PHP syntax errors and selected analysis data. To learn more about the features of Firebug and FirePHP, you can check out "Firebug: Add Browser-based Debugging to Your Ajax Development".(http://www.developer.com/lang/jscript/article.php/10939_3879711_2/Firebug-Add -Browser-based-Debugging-to-Your-Ajax-Development.htm).

　5. XDebug

Using a testing tool like PHPUNIT can help catch errors after you write the code. On the other hand, sometimes you need to use some help tools to help understand the causes of these problems. Many PHP developers use a good debugging tool, XDebug (http://xdebug.org/), which can help you check the status of the code, and provides tools to track and analyze code performance, view object content and other functions. If you want to get familiar with XDebug, you can check out previous articles

A Sanity-Saving Debugging Solution for Your PHP Development(http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore051410.php3).

　6. PHP extensions and application libraries

Although you may think that your idea is unique and special, there is still a good chance that the code you are trying to write has been written by many other programmers before. To help developers overcome such obstacles, PHP developers regularly contribute PHP extensions and application libraries, such as the famous PEAR. PEAR contains 560 packages that provide fast solutions such as caching, encryption, user authentication and payment processing. You can always find a solution that suits you in PEAR.

To help manage PEAR package applications, you can install the PEAR package management tool (http://pear.php.net/manual/en/installation.getting.php), which provides a command line interface to install, upgrade and Delete the package.

　7. PHP_CodeSniffer

Just like the debate about editors, the debate over coding style is even more ironic. Even so, the coding standards advocated by PEAR seem to have gained a place in the PHP community. However, you or your team may still not adopt such standard conventions, which will lead to code with inconsistent styles.

In order to avoid inconsistent code styles, you can consider installing PHP_CodeSniffer (http://pear.php.net/package/PHP_CodeSniffer), which is a very good PEAR package that can analyze PHP programs, JAVASCRIP and CSS files and Check out what violates the defined coding style. Although you can define your own coding style, PHP_CodeSniffer's coding style is very convenient.

　8. phpDocumentor

It is a very frustrating task to understand code from obscure code comments, even if the code is written by you before. Just like testing, writing documentation remains one of the few tasks developers want to avoid. To alleviate such pain, consider using a tool like

Automatic documentation tools like phpDocumentor. phpDocumentor supports a simple document rule syntax that can parse your code and generate friendly documentation. To learn more about phpDocumentor, you can check out the tutorial article Documenting PHP Code with PHPDocumentor

written by me.

　(http://www.developer.com/lang/php/article.php/3440261/Documenting-PHP-Code-with-PHPDocumentor.htm), and you can download the latest version from the phpDocumentor website.

　9. PHP_Beautifier

Another factor that hinders reading code is poor code format, because in scripting languages ​​​​such as PHP, it is easy to cause inappropriate indentation and form bad code format. You can use the package PHP_Beautifier

from PEAR

　(http://pear.php.net/package/PHP_Beautifier) ​​to automatically format code.

　10. phpUnderControl

If you are considering the tools mentioned above, then you can download phpUnderControl, which is built on CruiseControl. phpUnderControl includes multiple PHP tools, such as phpunit, phpdocumentor, and provides unified interface management.

http://www.bkjia.com/PHPjc/486259.htmlwww.bkjia.comtruehttp: //www.bkjia.com/PHPjc/486259.htmlTechArticleWhen we often have to deal with boring and repetitive tasks such as manual code testing and deployment, we often feel frustrated. . However, we have always strived to be efficient, as the DRY principle states...