Refactor codeigniter 3

[plufz]

Hi!

I'm trying to refactor some codeigniter 3 code. I don't know the name of this pattern, but it uses an old school big global object with dynamic properties where all other controllers/models/libraries are loaded. So rector can't really know what type of class or class method is used in an object at $this->Test_model->some_method().

Can I still refactor with rector somehow? Can I manually tell rector that "$this->Test_model" is an object of type Test_model?

[TomasVotruba]

Hi,

could you share your rule so far? Via https://getrector.com/custom-rule/
What is the starting code you're trying to refator, and how should it look like?

[samsonasik]

For legacy CodeIgniter 3 that lack of composer autoloading, that's not possible, unless you may need to set it via composer classmap definition:

"autoload": {
        "classmap": [
            "app/Model"
        ]
  }

then run composer dump-autoload

then using \PHPStan\Reflection\ReflectionProvider to pull the class based on PropertyFetch->name

[plufz]

I actually found a way to solve my issue. I leave it here if anyone else happens to have the same problem.

It both makes rector work without making custom rules (atleast the things I have tried to do so far) and it makes the code work better in your editor (autocomplete, go to definition, etc). It is basically just a matter of adding all the dynamic properties as actual properties with the type declared.

1. I made a new base class for the controller (CI_Controller) where I declared the type of every model and library I use (both from core codeigniter, and the ones in project).
2. Made a small hack to the system/core/Codeigniter.php class to make it look for my new custom controller class.
3. I extended the Loader class with a new database() loader function, copy-pasted from core and removed the line where the $db property is treated as a string.

class CI_Controller
{
    // CI Core
    public CI_DB $db;
    public CI_Input $input;
    public MY_Lang $lang; // since I use a customized version, otherwise CI_Lang
    public MY_Log $log; // MY since custom
    public CI_Output $output;
    public CI_Security $security;
    public CI_Config $config;
    public MY_Router $router; // MY since custom
    public CI_URI $uri;
    public CI_Benchmark $benchmark;

    // CI Libraries
    public CI_Email $email;
    public CI_Image_lib $image_lib;
    public CI_Form_validation $form_validation;
    public CI_Parser $parser;
    public CI_Upload $upload;
    public CI_Session $session;
    [there are a few more you can add from in system/libraries that I did not use]
    
    // Your models
    ...

   // Your libraries
   ...

   // All the code of the controller from system/core/Controller.php
   ...
}