Some useful settings and plugins for VI Editor : Part 4 - CodeSniffer Integration

In this part 4 of this series, I am going to discuss CodeSniffer and its integration with VIM editor.

What is CodeSniffer

CodeSniffer is a code analysis tool. This tool allows you to check your php code against a coding standard. It allows you to apply a set of rules (standard) to your source code. These rules can be used to detect common programming errors. It can also be used to define a set of coding standards for your project.

A coding standard in CodeSniffer is a collection of sniff files. Each sniff file checks one part of the coding standard only. CodeSniffer comes with a set of coding standards already defined. These are:

• MySource
• PEAR
• PHPCS
• Squiz
• Zend

The default coding standard used by CodeSniffer is the PEAR coding standard. By integrating CodeSniffer into vim you can get the list of violations in a separate error window.

How to install CodeSniffer

You can install CodeSniffer using pear.

$ sudo pear install PHP_CodeSniffer

This will download and install the CodeSniffer from the PEAR repository.

How to run CodeSniffer

To run CodeSniffer execute

$ phpcs --standard=<standard> <path to file or directory>

The output will be a list of errors and warnings in your code as per your coding standard. 

CodeSniffer Integration with VIM editor

Add folowing lines in your ~/.vimrc file

function! RunPhpcs()
    let l:filename=@%
    let l:phpcs_output=system('phpcs --report=full --standard=PEAR '.l:filename)
    let l:phpcs_list=split(l:phpcs_output, "\n")
    unlet l:phpcs_list[0]
    cexpr l:phpcs_list
    cwindow
endfunction

set errorformat+=\"%f\"\\,%l\\,%c\\,%t%*[a-zA-Z]\\,\"%m\"
command! Phpcs execute RunPhpcs()

Now you can run CodeSniffer for the current file using command

:Phpcs

After that run

:cope

This will open a window with a list of all the errors and warnings in your code as per your coding standard. Alternatively you can use quickfix also to navigate through the error window. For that see help quickfix in the vim help.


For other posts related to VIM settings and plugins you can also visit

Some useful settings and plugins for VI Editor : Part 1 - General settings
Some useful settings and plugins for VI Editor : Part 2 - Autocompletion
Some useful settings and plugins for VI Editor : Part 3 - PHP documentor
Some useful settings and plugins for VI Editor : Part 5 - Comment a code block