Best configuration and parameters for ctags in a CakePHP project

Question

What is the best configuration and parameters for ctags in a CakePHP project?

I want to be able to auto-complete ctp files, Components, Behaviours, Models and Helpers?

Answer 1

Check these github repositories, I have found then and they are so good for work with php and cakephp

• https://github.com/amix/vimrc
• https://github.com/ndreynolds/vim-cakephp

Answer 2

This solution requires 1 line in your .ctags file and two lines in your .vimrc file, so it's fairly minimal.

tl;dr

.ctags:

--langmap=php:+.ctp

.vimrc:

# Controller -> Component
map <leader>t yiw<cr>:tag /^<C-R>"<CR>
# View -> Helper
map <leader>h yiw<cr>:tag /^<C-R>"Helper<CR>

Add Views to your tags

This solution is mostly for jumping between files. I'll try and add auto-completion at a later date.

Add this to your ~/.ctags options file to include CakePHP views as PHP files:

--langmap=php:+.ctp

Then I'm assuming you've done ctags -R . at the root of your project (that's what I've done at least). This out of the box should pick up PHP syntax and class definitions.

Auto-completion (general)

I found the auto-completion (omni-completion from Ctrl+XCtrl+O) doesn't work very nicely with PHP, e.g. if I type $this-> and then try to auto-complete it doesn't find any tags.

The fix for this was to use install phpcomplete.vim. This will find methods within your class.

However that won't auto-complete connected models.

Models

By default ctags should work for all Controller -> Model jumping as the Model name is the same as the class name.

Behaviors

These again should be fine as you don't specify the name of the behavior you just have the method name which depending on how independent the name is it should get found - or at least it will be in the list of tags.

Components

There's no direct way of mapping these, I couldn't see a way of mapping them through the ctags --regex options. ctags recognises that they are classes but doesn't know the xxx -> xxxComponent mapping.

However there is one slight trick. You can do a tag search on the beginning of the class name (source)

:tag /^Email

will find

class EmailComponent

You can then map this in your .vimrc

map <leader>t yiw<cr>:tag /^<C-R>"<CR>

This copies the word that you've got the cursor over and then pastes it into the tag command and executes it. My leader is set to ,, so I can type ,t and it takes me to the corresponding component under the cursor.

Helpers

Ok, another slight hack in the .vimrc file:

map <leader>h yiw<cr>:tag /^<C-R>"Helper<CR>

Using ,h, this will jump you from $html->... to

class HtmlHelper extends AppHelper { 

But it doesn't work for functions inside e.g. if your cursor is over script in $html->script, it will not take you to the HtmlHelper script method. So it's a work in progress.