Methods that return a subclass of a property @returns

Question

I have an abstract class Foo and an abstract builder FooBuilder

abstract class Foo {

}

abstract class FooBuilder {
  protected Foo $model;

  /*** Return class instance
  *
  * @return Model //What is the correct return type? ?*/
  public function get()
  {
    return $this->model;
  }
}

I want to use the get() method in my child builder, but the IDE detects that the return type is a subclass, not abstract Foo ;.

class Bar extends Foo {
}

abstract class BarBuilder {
  public function __construct()
  {
    $this->model = new Bar();
  }
}

$barBuilder = BarBuilder();
$bar = $barBuilder->get(); //The type is "Bar", but the IDE thinks it is "Foo"

Is there a way in PHPDoc to return the static type of a property instead of the class? Similar to @return static($this->model)?

An example is the usage of Laravel's Eloquent in SomeModel::find(). The IDE knows that the type can be SomeModel. But @return only has Model.

Answer 1

You should use Foo as the return type in your example; but for fun, you can use a static return type to determine the subinstance, as shown below

class Foo
{
    /**
     * @return string
     */
    public function Iam(): string
    {
        return "hello";
    }
}

class Helper
{
    /**
     * Return the class instance
     *
     * @return static
     */
    public static function get(): static
    {
        return new self();
    }
}

class FooBuilder extends helper
{
    protected Foo $model;

    public function mememe()
    {
        echo "I am a method";
    }
}

class FooBuilder2 extends helper
{
    protected Foo $model;

    public function xray()
    {
        echo "I am a method";
    }
}

$test = FooBuilder::get();
$test->mememe();

$test2 = FooBuilder2::get();
$test2->xray();