Skip to content

Automated Refactoring (Rector)

XC_VM uses Rector to modernise legacy PHP mechanically and safely. Rector rewrites code on the AST (not text), so every transformation is deterministic and reproducible. It complements the existing tools rather than replacing them:

Tool Role
Rector Changes code — mechanical modernisation and simplification
PHPStan Reports type/logic problems (make phpstan)
phpcs / Slevomat Reports and fixes coding style (make cs / make cs-fix)
PHPUnit Verifies behaviour (tests/phpunit.phar)

Golden rule: detect → show the diff → verify → only then apply. Never mass-apply Rector to production code without reviewing a dry-run first.

Install

Rector is a require-dev dependency of src/composer.json (like PHPStan and phpcs). It is never shipped: the committed src/vendor/ is production-only.

make dev-tools     # composer install (incl. require-dev) — adds Rector to src/vendor

Before committing, always prune it back:

make dev-clean     # composer install --no-dev — restores a production-only vendor

The check-vendor-prod-only gate fails if Rector ever lands in the committed vendor, so make dev-clean is mandatory before any commit that touched dependencies.

Run

make rector        # dry-run: prints the diff, writes nothing (non-zero exit if changes pend)
make rector-fix    # applies the changes in place

Equivalent Composer scripts (run from src/):

composer refactor:dry
composer refactor

After applying changes, always run the full verification pipeline and review the diff:

make cs-fix        # reconcile style (tabs / K&R) with the rewritten files
make phpstan
php tests/phpunit.phar -c tests/phpunit.xml.dist

Configuration

The single config is build/rector.php (alongside build/phpstan.dist.neon and build/phpcs.xml.dist). Paths are anchored with __DIR__, so it behaves the same from the repo root or from src/.

Scope

Only the PSR-4, class-based trees are in scope:

src/Core  src/Domain  src/Cli  src/Infrastructure

Everything else is excluded and must stay excluded:

  • src/Public/**, src/Ministra/** — view templates use short tags (<?/<?=); procedural entry points depend on positional use imports enforced by the check-procedural-use gate.
  • src/Infrastructure/Tmdb/lib/** — the legacy global \TMDB library (not PSR-4).
  • src/Modules/** — runtime-installed (may be ionCube-encoded).
  • src/vendor/**, src/migrations/**, src/bin/**, runtime dirs (tmp, backups, …).
  • Streaming hot-path (src/Streaming/**, src/Public/stream/**, the streaming bootstraps, Fanout*Command) — higher risk, refactored later in its own cautious phase.

Enabled rules

The config enables the deadCode and codeQuality prepared sets — behaviour-preserving simplification and dead-code removal. Notably, the "empty-if with else" anti-pattern (pervasive in the legacy code) is collapsed by the built-in RemoveDeadIfForeachForRector:

if (!$user) {
} else {
    doThing();
}
// becomes:
if ($user) {
    doThing();
}

It leaves non-empty bodies, commented empty bodies, and elseif chains untouched. No custom rule is needed for this — a built-in already does it, and does it cleanly.

Deliberately disabled (behaviour-changing) rules

Two rules are skipped because they can change runtime behaviour on loosely-typed legacy code. Opt into them later, per file, after review — never as part of the mechanical pass:

  • SafeDeclareStrictTypesRector — adds declare(strict_types=1), changing int/string coercion.
  • UseIdenticalOverEqualWithSameTypeRector — == → ===, which is type-sensitive.

Import-adding rules are also left off (the default), to protect the check-procedural-use gate.

Adding a project-specific rule

Prefer a built-in rule when one exists. If you genuinely need an XC_VM-specific transformation:

  1. Add a class under tools/rector/src/ (a Rector rule extends Rector\Rector\AbstractRector).
  2. Wire its namespace via an autoload-dev PSR-4 entry in src/composer.json, then composer dump-autoload from src/.
  3. Register it in build/rector.php with ->withRules([...]).
  4. Add fixture tests (Rector's AbstractRectorTestCase, before/after split by -----) in a separate PHPUnit suite — not tests/Unit/, because the main test job runs against the production-only vendor where Rector's test classes are absent.

CI

There is no Rector CI job yet. It is planned as a separate check-only job (dry-run) that reports but never modifies the repository — see the project's refactoring roadmap.