Is there a way to "reuse" a PHP DocBlock?

Question

I currently have code like this:

/**
 * blah blah blah thing1
 *
 * @return string a thing1
 */
function thing1() {
    //
}

/**
 * blah blah blah thing2
 *
 * @return string a thing2
 */
function thing2() {
    //
}

//dozens more with the same format

Is there a more concise way to do that?

Answer 1

Assuming the docblocks are actually identical, often the case when you're overriding an inherited method but maintaining the same signature, you can use @see....

abstract class MyBaseModel
    /**
     * @param Boolean $excludeDeleted Should soft-deleted records be excluded
     */
    public function newQuery($excludeDeleted = true)
    {
        ....
    }
}

class MyExtendedModel extends MyBaseModel
    /**
     * Overload the base newQuery() method so that we can inject any security filters into the query
     *
     * @see MyBaseModel::newQuery
     */
    public function newQuery($excludeDeleted = true)
    {
        ....
    }
}

but the sample docblocks for your thing1() and thing2() aren't identical, so there's no concise (lazy) way of doing so in that case

Answer 2

You can use a @see if it is truly the same.

Documentation relating to this

/**
 * blah blah blah thing1
 *
 * @return string a thing1
 */
function thing1() {
    //
}

/**
 * @see thing1
 */
function thing2() {
    //
}