php-lsp

A PHP Language Server Protocol (LSP) implementation written in Rust.

Features

Language intelligence

• Diagnostics — syntax errors reported in real time; semantic warnings for undefined symbols and argument-count mismatches
• Hover — PHP signature for functions, methods, classes, interfaces, and traits; includes @param/@return docblock annotations when present
• Go-to-definition — jump to where a symbol is declared, including across open files and into Composer vendor packages via PSR-4 autoload maps
• Go-to-implementation — find all classes that implement an interface or extend a class
• Find references — locate every usage of a symbol across the workspace, including use import statements
• Rename — rename any function, method, or class across all open files, including its use import statements

Editing aids

• Completion — keywords, functions, classes, methods, properties, constants; -> completions scoped to the inferred receiver type ($obj = new Foo() → $obj-> shows only Foo's methods); cross-file symbols from all indexed documents
• Signature help — parameter hints while typing a call, including overload narrowing
• Inlay hints — parameter name labels at call sites; return-type labels after assigned function calls
• Code actions — "Add use import" quick-fix for undefined class names

Navigation

• Document symbols — file outline of all functions, classes, methods, properties, and constants
• Workspace symbols — fuzzy-search symbols across the entire project
• Call hierarchy — incoming callers and outgoing callees for any function or method, including cross-file
• Selection range — smart expand/shrink selection (Alt+Shift+→) from expression → statement → function/class → file
• Document highlight — highlights all occurrences of the symbol under the cursor in the current file
• Folding ranges — collapse functions, classes, methods, loops, and control-flow blocks

Syntax

• Semantic tokens — richer syntax highlighting for functions, methods, classes, interfaces, traits, parameters, and properties with declaration/static/abstract/readonly modifiers

Workspace

• Workspace indexing — background scan indexes all *.php files on startup (including vendor/), with a 50 000-file cap; LRU eviction keeps memory bounded at 10 000 indexed-only files
• PSR-4 resolution — reads composer.json and vendor/composer/installed.json to resolve fully-qualified class names to files on demand
• File watching — index stays up to date when files are created, changed, or deleted on disk
• Async parsing — edits are debounced (100 ms) and parsed off the tokio runtime; stale results from superseded edits are discarded

Installation

cargo install php-lsp

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/jorgsowa/php-lsp
cd php-lsp
cargo build --release
# binary at target/release/php-lsp

Editor Setup

PHPStorm (2023.2+)

1. Open Settings → Languages & Frameworks → Language Servers
2. Click + and configure:
   • Name: php-lsp
   • Language: PHP
   • Command: /path/to/php-lsp
3. Set file pattern to *.php

Neovim (via nvim-lspconfig)

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("FileType", {
  pattern = "php",
  callback = function()
    vim.lsp.start({
      name = "php-lsp",
      cmd = { "/path/to/php-lsp" },
      root_dir = vim.fs.root(0, { "composer.json", ".git" }),
    })
  end,
})

VS Code

Use the custom LSP client extension or any extension that supports arbitrary LSP servers. Set the server command to the php-lsp binary.

How It Works

The server communicates over stdin/stdout using the Language Server Protocol. It uses php-parser-rs to parse PHP source into an AST, which is cached per document and reused across all requests.

License

MIT