Property Alias

This package enables you to create aliases for existing class properties with a simple ClassDoc setup.

Below is an example of creating an alias to $this->foo.

/**
 * @property $my_alias = foo
 *              ^
 *              |
 *      This is how you define an alias to "$foo".
 *      Valid PHP identifiers will work, including UTF-8 $한글.
 */
 class MyClass {
    use \Selfiens\PropertyAliasTrait;

    public string $foo = 'foo';
 }

Then you can read/write properties via alias.

$my = new MyClass();

// read
echo $my->my_alias; // 'foo'

 // write
$my->my_alias = 'bar';
echo $my->foo; // 'bar';

Install

composer require selfiens/property-alias:^1.0

Setup

This package's \Selfiens\PropertyAliasTrait uses ClassDoc as the source of alias definitions. You can create aliases using the @property syntax, as shown in the following example:

/**
 * @property $alias_name = target_property
 */

You can define as many aliases as you desire. Aliases can point to the other aliases.

Background

Aliases on existing properties

This package aims to assist in accessing poorly named properties by better names. It is designed to help in situations where you are unable to rename a property due to reasons such as its origin from an external API, a poorly named database field, or the high risk associated with refactoring the name.

Defining aliases in ClassDoc with @property

The @property definitions in ClassDoc are understood by many IDEs, and these IDEs will provide auto-completions and refactorings as if the aliases were real properties.