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Productivity & Docs
phpDocumentor
phpDocumentor logo
Productivity & Docs

phpDocumentor

phpDocumentor is an open-source documentation generator specifically designed for PHP projects. It parses source code written in PHP and extracts structured information from specially formatted comments, known as docblocks, to generate comprehensive API documentation in various formats like HTML, PDF, and CHM. It is a critical tool for developers and teams to maintain clear, navigable, and up-to-date documentation for libraries, frameworks, and applications, directly linking the codebase to its technical specification. By automating the documentation process, it enforces consistency, reduces manual effort, and helps onboard new developers. It supports modern PHP features and offers extensive customization through templates and plugins, making it a staple in professional PHP development workflows for improving code quality and collaboration.

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📊 At a Glance

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Key Features

DocBlock Parsing

Intelligently parses specially formatted comment blocks (docblocks) within PHP source code to extract metadata like descriptions, parameter types, return values, and exceptions.

Multiple Output Formats

Generates documentation in several formats including interactive HTML, printable PDF, and Windows CHM help files from the same source code analysis.

Template Engine

Uses a powerful Twig-based template system that allows complete customization of the look, feel, and structure of the generated documentation output.

Graph Generation

Automatically creates visual graphs such as class inheritance diagrams and package dependency charts to illustrate relationships within the codebase.

Integration & Automation

Designed for command-line use and easily integrated into development workflows, CI/CD pipelines (like GitHub Actions, Jenkins), and IDEs.

Plugin System

Supports an extensible plugin architecture that allows developers to add custom processing, validation, or transformations during the documentation generation process.

Pricing

Open Source

$0
  • ✓Full access to all core phpDocumentor features for generating API documentation.
  • ✓Unlimited projects, files, and users.
  • ✓Support for multiple output formats (HTML, PDF, CHM).
  • ✓Extensive customization via templates and plugins.
  • ✓Command-line interface and integration capabilities.
  • ✓Community support via GitHub issues and discussions.

Use Cases

1

Open-Source Library Maintenance

Maintainers of popular PHP libraries use phpDocumentor to generate professional, always-up-to-date API documentation hosted on project websites. This provides clear usage instructions for downstream developers, reduces support requests, and encourages adoption by demonstrating code quality. The automated generation ensures documentation stays in sync with every release.

2

Enterprise Application Development

Large development teams within companies use phpDocumentor to create a centralized, searchable knowledge base for their internal APIs and service layers. This standardizes communication between frontend and backend teams, accelerates onboarding of new hires, and serves as a living technical specification during maintenance and refactoring phases.

3

API-First Design & Contract Validation

Teams practicing API-first development use phpDocumentor's detailed output to review and validate the proposed interface of a service before significant implementation begins. The generated documentation acts as a contract that can be shared with stakeholders, ensuring all parties agree on method signatures, data types, and expected behaviors.

4

Legacy Code Analysis and Refactoring

Developers tasked with understanding or modernizing a legacy PHP codebase use phpDocumentor to generate a map of all classes, dependencies, and method calls. This visual and navigable overview reveals architectural patterns, hidden dependencies, and dead code, providing a crucial starting point for planning refactoring or documentation efforts.

5

Quality Assurance and Compliance

Organizations with strict internal coding standards or regulatory requirements integrate phpDocumentor into their CI/CD pipelines. The tool can be configured to fail builds if critical public APIs are missing docblocks or if certain annotations are absent, enforcing documentation completeness as a non-negotiable aspect of code quality.

6

Educational Resource Creation

Instructors and training organizations use phpDocumentor to generate clean, structured documentation from example codebases used in courses or workshops. This provides students with a professional-grade reference that illustrates best practices for code commenting and allows them to explore the example architecture interactively.

How to Use

  1. Step 1: Install phpDocumentor via Composer by running `composer require --dev phpdocumentor/phpdocumentor` in your PHP project's root directory to add it as a development dependency.
  2. Step 2: Ensure your PHP source code contains docblock comments above classes, methods, properties, and other elements, using the `@param`, `@return`, `@throws` tags and others to annotate types and descriptions.
  3. Step 3: Run phpDocumentor from the command line, typically using a command like `vendor/bin/phpdoc -d ./src -t ./docs` to specify the source directory (`-d`) and the target output directory (`-t`).
  4. Step 4: Configure the tool further by creating a `phpdoc.xml` or `phpdoc.dist.xml` configuration file in your project root to define settings like source paths, output format, template, visibility levels, and ignore patterns.
  5. Step 5: Execute the generation command. phpDocumentor will parse all specified files, process the docblocks, and generate the documentation in the chosen format (default is HTML) in the target directory.
  6. Step 6: Open the generated `index.html` file in the output directory with a web browser to navigate the interactive API documentation, which includes class hierarchies, method signatures, and cross-references.
  7. Step 7: Integrate phpDocumentor into your continuous integration (CI/CD) pipeline by adding the generation command as a build step, ensuring documentation is automatically updated with each code change.
  8. Step 8: Customize the appearance and content of the output by selecting different built-in templates (like 'clean' or 'responsive') or creating custom templates to match your project's branding and structure.

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