Abstract Syntax Tree - PHP Development Tools

The AST is comparable to the DOM tree model of an XML file. Just like with DOM, the AST allows you to modify the tree model and reflects these modifications in the PHP source code.

This part of the article refers to an example application which covers most of the interesting AST-related topics. Let us have a look at the application that was built to illustrate this article:

Workflow

A typical workflow of an application using AST looks like this:

Figure 1. AST Workflow

1. PHP source: To start off, you provide some source code to parse. This source code can be supplied as a PHP file in your project or directly as a char[] that contains PHP source
2. Parse: The source code described at 1 is parsed. All you need for this step is provided by the class org.eclipse.jdt.core.dom.ASTParser. See the section called “Parsing source code”.
3. The Abstract Syntax Tree is the result of step 2. It is a tree model that entirely represents the source you provided in step 1. If requested, the parser also computes and includes additional symbol resolved information called "bindings".

4. Manipulating the AST: If the AST of point 3 needs to be changed, this can be done in two ways:

   1. By directly modifying the AST.
   2. By noting the modifications in a separate protocol. This protocol is handled by an instance of ASTRewrite.
   See more in the section called “How to Apply Changes”.
5. Writing changes back: If changes have been made, they need to be applied to the source code that was provided by 1. This is described in detail in the section called “Write it down”.
6. IDocument: Is a wrapper for the source code of step 1 and is needed at point 5

As mentioned, the Abstract Syntax Tree is the way that Eclipse looks at your source code: every PHP source file is entirely represented as tree of AST nodes. These nodes are all subclasses of ASTNode. Every subclass is specialized for an element of the PHP Programming Language. E.g. there are nodes for method declarations ( MethodDeclaration), class declaration (ClassDeclaration), assignments and so on. One very frequently used node is Identifier. An Identifier is any string of PHP source that is not a keyword or a scalar Scalar For example, in $i = 6 + $j;, $i and $j are represented by Identifier. 

All AST-relevant classes are located in the package org.eclipse.php.core.dom of the org.eclipse.php.core plug-in.

To discover how code is represented as AST, the AST Viewer plug-in [4] is a big help: Once installed you can simply mark source code in the editor and let it be displayed in a tree form in the AST Viewer view.

Parsing source code

Most of the time, an AST is not created from scratch, but rather parsed from existing PHP code. This is done using the ASTParser. It processes whole PHP files as well as portions of PHP code. In the example application the method Program parse(ISourceModule lwUnit)of the class AbstractASTArticle parses the source code stored in the file that lwUnit points to:

protected Program parse(ICompilationUnit unit) {
	ASTParser parser = ASTParser.newParser(ASTParser.VERSION_PHP5, lwUnit);
	try {
	return (Program) parser.createAST(null /* IProgressMonitor */); 
	} catch (Exception e) {
	return null;
	} 
}

With ASTParser.newParser(ASTParser.VERSION_PHP5, lwUnit), we advise the parser to parse the code following to the PHP Language Specification, includes all PHP Language Specifications up to the new syntax introduced in PHP 5. An ISourceModule is a pointer to a PHP file, and will be used to reolve binding infoirmation of this script. The parser supports five kinds of input:

Entire source file: The parser expects the source either as a pointer to a PHP file (which means as an ISourceModule, see the section called “PHP Model”) or as char[].

PHP Model

The PHP Model is a whole different story. It is out of scope of this article to dive deep into its details within. The parts looked at will be the ones which intersect with the AST. The motivation to discuss it here is, to use it as an entry point to build an Abstract Syntax Tree of a source file. Remember, the ICompilationUnit is one of the possible parameters for the AST parser.

The PHP Model represents a PHP Project in a tree structure, which is visualized by the well known "Package Explorer" view:

Figure 2. PHP Model Overview

The nodes of the PHP Model implement one of the following interfaces:

• IScriptProject: Is the node of the PHP Model and represents a PHP Project. It contains IProjectFragment as child nodes.
• IProjectFragment: Represents a project fragment, and maps the contents to an underlying resource which is either a folder, JAR, or ZIP file.
• IScriptFolder: Represents a folder containing script files inside.
• ISourceModule: Represents a PHP source file.
• IType: Represents a class or interface in a source file.
• IField: Represents a field or constant in an IType
• IMethod: Represents afunction in of source file or a method in a class or interface

In contrast to the AST, these nodes are lightweight handles. It costs much less to rebuild a portion of the PHP Model than to rebuild an AST. That is also one reason why the PHP Model is not only defined down to the level of ISourceModule. There are many cases where complete information, like that provided by the AST, is not needed. One example is the Outline view: this view does not need to know the contents of a method body. It is more important that it can be rebuilt fast, to keep in sync with its source code.

There are different ways to get an ISourceModule. The example applications are launched as actions from the package tree view. This is quite convenient: only add an objectContribution extension to the point org.eclipse.ui.popupMenus. By choosing org.eclipse.dltk.core.ISourceModule as objectClass, the action will be only displayed in the context menu of a compilation unit. Have a look at the example application's plugin.xml. The compilation unit then can be retrieved from the ISelection, that is passed to the action's delegate (in the example, this is ASTArticleActionDelegate).

Another, programmatic, approach is to get the project handle from the IDE and to look for the compilation unit. This can be done by either step down the PHP Model tree to collect the desired ISourceModules. Or, by calling the findType() of the PHP project:

IWorkspaceRoot root = ResourcesPlugin.getWorkspace().getRoot();
IProject project = root.getProject("somePHPProject");
project.open(null /* IProgressMonitor */);
IScriptProject PHPProject = DLTKCore.create(project);
IType lwType = PHPProject.findType("MyClass");
ISourceModule lwSourceModule = lwType.getSourceModule();

public boolean visit(VariableDeclarationStatement node) {
	for (Iterator iter = node.fragments().iterator(); iter.hasNext();) {
	VariableDeclarationFragment fragment = (VariableDeclarationFragment) iter.next();
	// ... store these fragments somewhere
	}
	return false; // prevent that SimpleName is interpreted as reference
}

public void process(Program program) {
	program.accept(this);
}

Obtaining Information from an AST Node

Every subclass of ASTNode contains specific information for the PHP element it represents. E.g. a FunctionDeclaration will contain information about the name, return type, parameters, etc. The information of a node is referred as structural properties. Let us have a closer look at the characteristics of the structural properties. Beneath you see the properties of this function declaration:

function println($content) {
	echo $content . '<BR/>' ;
}

Figure 3. Structural properties of a method declaration

Access to the values of a node's structural properties can be made using static or generic methods:

1. static methods: every node offers methods to access its properties: e.g. getName(), etc.

2. generic method: ask for a property value using the getStructuralProperty(StructuralPropertyDescriptor property) method. Every AST subclass defines a set of StructuralPropertyDescriptors, one for every structural property. The StructuralPropertyDescriptor can be accessed directly on the class to which they belong: e.g. FunctionDeclaration.NAME_PROPERTY. A list of all available StructuralPropertyDescriptors of a node can be retrieved by calling the method structuralPropertiesForType() on any instance of ASTNode.

The structural properties are grouped into three different kinds: properties that hold simple values, properties which contain a single child AST node and properties which contain a list of child AST nodes.

Figure 4. StructuralPropertyDescriptor and subclasses

view full size

• SimplePropertyDescriptor: The value will be a String, a primitive value wrapper for either Integer or Boolean or a basic AST constant. For a list of all possible value classes of a simple property, see Appendix C, Simple properties value classes

• ChildPropertyDescriptor: The value will be a node, an instance of an ASTNode subclass

• ChildListPropertyDescriptor: The value will be a List of AST nodes

The AST, as far as we know it, is just a tree-form representation of source code. Every element of the source code is mapped to a node or a subtree. Looking at a reference to a variable, let's say $i, is represented by an instance of Identifier with "i" as IDENTIFIER property-value. Bindings go one step further: they provide extended resolved information for several elements of the AST. About the Identifier above they tell us that it is a reference to a local variable of type int.

Various subclasses of ASTNode have binding information. It is retrieved by calling resolveBinding() on these classes. There are cases where more than one binding is available: e.g. the class MethodInvocation returns a binding to the method that is invoked (resolveMethodBinding()). Furthermore a binding to the return type of the method (resolveTypeBinding()). 

Since evaluating bindings is costly, the binding service has to be explicitly requested at parse time. This is done by passing the relevant  ISourceModule to the method ASTParser.createParser() before the source is being parsed.

$i = 7;
echo 'Hello!';
$x = $i * 2;

Bindings provide more information:

Bindings allow you to comfortably find out to which declaration a reference belongs, as well as to detect whether two elements are references to the same element: if they are, the bindings returned by reference-nodes and declaration-nodes are identical. For example, all Identifiers that represent a reference to a local variable i return the same instance of IVariableBinding from Identifier.resolveBindings(). The declaration node, Identifier.resolveBinding(), returns the same instance of IVariableBinding, too. If there is another usage of a local variable i (within another method or block), another instance of IVariableBinding is returned. Confusions caused by equally named elements are avoided if bindings are used to identify an element (variable, method, type, etc.).

This section will show how to modify an AST and how to store these modifications back into PHP source code.

New AST nodes may have to be created. New nodes are created by using the class org.eclipse.php.core.dom.AST (here AST it is the name of an actual class. Do not confuse with the abbreviation "AST" used within this article). Have a look at this class: it offers methods to create every AST node type. An instance of AST is created when source code is parsed. This instance can be obtained from every node of the tree by calling the method getAST(). The newly created nodes can only be added to the tree that class AST was retrieved from.

Often it is convenient to reuse an existing subtree of an AST and maybe just change some details. AST nodes cannot be re-parented, once connected to an AST, they cannot be attached to a different place of the tree. Though it is easy to create a copy from a subtree: (Expression) ASTNode.copySubtree(ast, node) . The parameter ast is the target AST. This instance will be used to create the new nodes. That allows copying nodes from another AST (established by another parser run) into the current AST domain.

There are two APIs to track modifications on an AST: either you can directly modify the tree or you can make use of a separate protocol, managed by an instance of ASTRewrite. The latter, using the ASTRewrite, is the more sophisticated and preferable way. The changes are noted by an instance of ASTRewrite, the original AST is left untouched. It is possible to create more than one instance of ASTRewrite for the same AST, which means that different change logs can be set up. "Quick Fix" makes use of this API: this is how for every Quick Fix proposal a preview is created.

MethodDeclaration md = ast.newMethodDeclaration();
md.setName(ast.newName("foo"));
ASTRewrite rewriter = ASTRewrite.create(ast);
ClassDeclaration td = (ClassDeclaration) cu.statements().get(0);
ITrackedNodePosition tdLocation = rewriter.track(td);
ListRewrite lrw = rewriter.getListRewrite(cu, Program.METHODS_PROPERTY);
lrw.insertLast(md, null);

rewrite.set(methodInvocation, MethodInvocation.NAME_PROPERTY, newName, null);

rewrite.replace(methodInvocation.getName() /* old name node*/, newName, null)

Let us have a look at the second way to change an AST. Instead of tracking the modifications in separate protocols, we directly modify the AST. The only thing that has to done before modifying the first node is to turn on the change recording by calling recordModifications() on the root of the AST, the CompilationUnit. Internally changes are logged to an ASTRewrite as well, but this happens hidden to you.

 program.recordModifications();
 AST ast = program.getAST();
 EchoStatement echo = ast.newEchoStatement();
 echo.setExpression(ast.newScalar(“Hello World“));
 program.statements().add(echo);

The next section will tell how to write the modifications back into PHP source code.

ITextFileBufferManager bufferManager = FileBuffers.getTextFileBufferManager(); // get the buffer manager
IPath path = unit.getPHPElement().getPath(); // unit: instance of CompilationUnit
try {
	bufferManager.connect(path, null); // (1)
	ITextFileBuffer textFileBuffer = bufferManager.getTextFileBuffer(path);
	// retrieve the buffer
	IDocument document = textFileBuffer.getDocument(); (2)
	// ... edit the document here ...
	// commit changes to underlying file
	textFileBuffer.commit(null /* ProgressMonitor */, false /* Overwrite */); // (3)
} finally {
	bufferManager.disconnect(path, null); // (4)
}

One of the most frustrating part of modifying an AST is the comment handling. The method CompilationUnit#getCommentList() is used to return the list of comments located in the compilation unit in the ascendant order. Unfortunately, this list cannot be modified. This means that even if the AST Rewriter is used to add a comment inside a compilation unit, the new comment would not appear inside the comments' list.

In order to add a comment the following code snippet can be used:

Program astRoot= ... ; // get the current program
ASTRewrite rewrite= ASTRewrite.create(astRoot.getAST());
Block block= (TypeDeclaration) astRoot.statements().get(0).getBody();
ListRewrite listRewrite= rewrite.getListRewrite(block, Block.STATEMENTS_PROPERTY);
Statement placeHolder= rewrite.createStringPlaceholder("//mycomment", ASTNode.EMPTY_STATEMENT);
listRewrite.insertFirst(placeHolder, null);
textEdits= rewrite.rewriteAST(document, null);
textEdits.apply(document);

The methods Program#getExtendedLength(ASTNode) and Program#getExtendedStartPosition(ASTNode) can be used to retrieve the range of a node that would contains preceding and trailing comments and whitespaces.

This article has shown how to use the Eclipse AST for static code analysis and code manipulation issues. It touched the PHP Model, explained Bindings and showed how to store changes made to the AST back into PHP source code.

For remarks, questions, etc. enter a comment in the bugzilla entry of this article [6].