PHP 7.0.6 Released

ReflectionClass::getDocComment

(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7)

ReflectionClass::getDocCommentGets doc comments

Description

public string ReflectionClass::getDocComment ( void )

Gets doc comments from a class.

Warning

This function is currently not documented; only its argument list is available.

Parameters

This function has no parameters.

Return Values

The doc comment if it exists, otherwise FALSE

Examples

Example #1 ReflectionClass::getDocComment() example

<?php
/** 
* A test class
*
* @param  foo bar
* @return baz
*/
class TestClass { }

$rc = new ReflectionClass('TestClass');
var_dump($rc->getDocComment())
?>

The above example will output:

string(55) "/** 
* A test class
*
* @param  foo bar
* @return baz
*/"

See Also

User Contributed Notes

joe dot scylla at gmail dot com
6 years ago
If you're using a bytecode cache like eAccelerator this method will return FALSE even if there is a properly formatted Docblock. It looks like the information required by this method gets stripped out by the bytecode cache.
uramihsayibok, gmail, com
5 years ago
According to what I can find in the PHP (5.3.2) source code, getDocComment will return the doc comment as the parser found it.
The doc comment (T_DOC_COMMENT) must begin with a /** - that's two asterisks, not one. The comment continues until the first */. A normal multi-line comment /*...*/ (T_COMMENT) does not count as a doc comment.

The doc comment itself includes those five characters, so <?php substr($doccomment, 3, -2) ?> will get you what's inside. A call to trim() after is recommended.
gabe at fijiwebdesign dot com
1 year ago
You can also get the docblock definitions for the defined methods of a class as such:

<?php
/**
* This is an Example class
*/
class Example
{
   
/**
     * This is an example function
     */
   
public function fn()
    {
       
// void
   
}
}

$reflector = new ReflectionClass('Example');

// to get the Class DocBlock
echo $reflector->getDocComment()

// to get the Method DocBlock
$reflector->getMethod('fn')->getDocComment();

?>
sun
1 year ago
Note that \ReflectionClass::getDocComment() ignores all other PHP code and all white-space between the last encountered T_DOC_COMMENT and the class/element definition.

The only exceptions appear to be T_NAMESPACE declarations and T_FUNCTION definitions.

<?php
/**
* Before namespace.
*/
namespace Foo;

/**
* After namespace.
   */ 

// ^^ contains excessive leading + trailing white-space.
use Bar\Baz;
const
FOO = 'BAR';
$ns = 'bar';
# function foo() {}
$a = 2 + 1;
#/** what? */
// ^^ A single-line T_DOC_COMMENT is invisible when commented out.
count(array());

class
Foo {
}

$reflector = new \ReflectionClass('Foo\Foo');
var_dump($reflector->getDocComment());
?>
yields, despite all the garbage in between:

string(28) "/**
* After namespace.
   */"

To sum up:

1. If there are multiple doc comments, the last encountered applies.

2. Removing the "After namespace." docblock yields FALSE.
   (The namespace delimits the scope.)

3. Uncommenting the function definition yields FALSE.
   (The doc comment applies to the function instead.)

4. Despite being an own language construct, the "const" constant declaration does not delimit the scope.

5. Any leading and trailing white-space before and after the T_DOC_COMMENT ("/**...*/") is ignored, but the entire string content within (including all white-space) is consumed literally/verbatim.

[PHP 5.4.29]
geoffreybans at gmail dot com
3 months ago
This code can help you get the contents of a docBlock in array format beginning with the @symbol and ignoring the (*) asterists.

class Home {

    /**
     *This method loads the homepage
     *@param int $id The user id
     *@throws \Exception If the user id doesn't exist
     *@return void
     */
    public function index( $id)
    {

         #...your code here

      }

}

$object = new Home();

//get the comment string
$comment_string= (new ReflectionClass($object))->getMethod('index')->getdoccomment();

//define the regular expression pattern to use for string matching
$pattern = "#(@[a-zA-Z]+\s*[a-zA-Z0-9, ()_].*)#";

//perform the regular expression on the string provided
preg_match_all($pattern, $comment_string, $matches, PREG_PATTERN_ORDER);

echo "<pre>"; print_r($matches);

//this outputs
Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [0] => @param int $id The user id
            [1] => @throws \Exception If the user id doesn't exist
            [2] => @return void
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => @param int $id The user id
            [1] => @throws \Exception If the user id doesn't exist
            [2] => @return void
        )

)

//you can then be able to access the particular string values by index
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