[FR] Enums: sniff to enforce that non-public methods use private instead of protected #442

Setting the scene

PHP 8.1 introduced enumerations (enums). Enums do not support inheritance: an enum cannot extend another enum or be extended, which means a protected member is functionally equivalent to private.

PER-CS 2.0 added a dedicated section on enumerations and codifies this: in an enum, a non-public method must be declared private, never protected.

Neither PHP_CodeSniffer itself nor PHPCSExtra contains a sniff to handle this.

Proposed new sniff: Universal.Enums.EnumProtectedMember

To address this rule from PER:

Non-public methods MUST use private instead of protected, as enums do not support inheritance.

Notes for the implementation

Registering [T_FUNCTION, T_CONST] is a good entry point. From each token, PHPCSUtils\Utils\Scopes::validDirectScope($phpcsFile, $stackPtr, \T_ENUM) confirms the member's direct wrapping scope is an enum. From there the sniff locates the T_PROTECTED token and flags it.

PER states this rule for methods only, but enum constants can also be declared protected, and the same reasoning applies: enums are implicitly final, so a protected constant is functionally identical to a private one.

The fix replaces the protected keyword with private.

Suggested error codes:

• MethodFound
• ConstantFound

Note: I opened an issue suggesting that the PER-CS rule be updated to cover constants as well: php-fig/per-coding-style#150. Using a separate error code means the error for constants can be excluded when implementing the PER-CS 2.0 standard.

Describe the solution you'd like

A new sniff as outlined above.

The sniff should be able to flag and auto-fix the following:

enum Suit: string
{
    case Hearts = 'H';

    // OK.
    public function color(): string
    {
        return 'Red';
    }

    // OK.
    private function helper(): string
    {
        return 'ok';
    }

    // Error: non-public method MUST use `private`, not `protected`. Auto-fixed to `private`.
    protected function bad(): string
    {
        return 'nope';
    }

    // Error: `protected` constant in an enum. Auto-fixed to `private`.
    protected const SECRET = 'x';

    // Not flagged: method in an anonymous class nested inside an enum method is out of scope.
    public function makeHelper(): object
    {
        return new class {
            protected function stillFine(): string
            {
                return 'ok';
            }
        };
    }
}

Also see the examples outlined in the PER documents (rules + migration guide).

Additional context (optional)

This ticket is the result of a detailed analysis of the rules as outlined in PER-CS 2.0, as well as a critical look at what's still missing rule-wise.

• I intend to create a pull request to implement this feature.