Emacs and PHP tutorial: php-mode
php-mode is responsible for syntax highlighting, indentation, and other major PHP-specific modifications to your editing environment. There are a number of PHP modes available for Emacs. In this project, you’ll learn how to set up the php-mode available from http://sourceforge.net/projects/php-mode/ . At the time of this writing, the current version is 1.4.0 and the maintainer is Aaron Hawley.
Download the latest php-mode.el from http://php-mode.sourceforge.net/ and save it to a directory in your load-path. I like to organize my Emacs Lisp files in a directory called ~/elisp. To add PHP support to your Emacs, add the following lines to your ~/.emacs:
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/elisp")
(require 'php-mode)
This configures Emacs to automatically recognize files ending in “.php”, “.phps”, “.php3″, “.php4″, “.phtml”, and “.inc” as PHP files. To associate more extensions with PHP files, add lines like this example to your ~/.emacs:
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.module$" . php-mode))
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.inc$" . php-mode))
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.install$" . php-mode))
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.engine$" . php-mode))
This associates php-mode with the extensions used by Drupal, a PHP framework. When you open a file with the specified extension, it should be highlighted according to PHP syntax.
Here are some useful commands:
| TAB | c-indent-command | Indent the current line |
| M-; | comment-dwim | Add a line comment, comments or uncomments the currently-selected region, or does other smart comment-related actions |
| C-c C-f | php-search-documentation | Search the online PHP manual for the current word |
| C-c RET | php-browse-manual | View the online PHP manual |
| C-c . | c-set-style | Change coding style |
| C-M-a, C-M-e | c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun | Go to the beginning or end of the current function |
| C-M-h | c-mark-function | Select the current function |
| M-a, M-e | c-beginning-of-statement, c-end-of-statement | Go to the beginning or end of the current statement |
Here are some variables you may wish to customize:
| indent-tabs-mode | Set this to nil if you want to insert spaces instead of tabs |
| case-fold-search | Set this to t if you want case-insensitive search. |
| c-basic-offset | Set your tab size or number of spaces used as a basis for indentation |
You can either customize these variables globally with M-x customize or set them for php-mode. Here’s an example that sets up a buffer with the coding style recommended for Drupal:
(defun wicked/php-mode-init ()
"Set some buffer-local variables."
(setq case-fold-search t)
(setq indent-tabs-mode nil)
(setq fill-column 78)
(setq c-basic-offset 2)
(c-set-offset 'arglist-cont 0)
(c-set-offset 'arglist-intro '+)
(c-set-offset 'case-label 2)
(c-set-offset 'arglist-close 0))
(add-hook 'php-mode-hook 'wicked/php-mode-init)
You can further customize the indentation by moving the point to where the indentation needs improvement and typing C-c C-o (c-set-offset).
To try automatic indentation, press C-j (newline-and-indent). If you like that behavior, you can make it the default in php-mode by adding the following line in ~/.emacs:
(define-key php-mode-map (kbd “RET”) ‘newline-and-indent)
You may also be interested in M-x show-paren-mode, which shows the matching parenthesis, bracket or brace for the character at point. You can enable it automatically by adding the following line to your ~/.emacs:
(setq show-paren-mode t)
It’s a good idea to separate PHP and HTML code. This is not only better coding practice, but it also makes developing in Emacs much easier. php-mode focuses on PHP-specific behavior and does not have special support for HTML. Emacs has a number of packages that allow you to work with multiple modes like php-mode and html-helper-mode in a single buffer, but they don’t always work, and indentation can be confusing. If you must work with large segments of both PHP and HTML in the same file, check out MultipleModes (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/MultipleModes) for tips.
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php-mode is decent, but it has plenty of issues.
C-M-h, for example, doesn’t understand OOP code. If you use it to mark a method in a class, it marks the entire class. Same goes for any of the other commands for dealing with functions, like beginning-of-defun & friends.
I have a few custom functions and bindings:
(defun terminate-line ()
“Terminate the line with a semicolon, and prepare to start typing on the next line. A second semicolon will not be inserted if one is already present.
If the line begins with `case,’ a colon will be inserted insead.”
(interactive)
(back-to-indentation)
(if (looking-at “case”)
(setq eol-char “:”)
(setq eol-char “;”))
(end-of-line)
(if (not (looking-back eol-char))
(insert eol-char))
(reindent-then-newline-and-indent))
(defun open-line-indent (n)
“Insert a newline and leave point before it.
If there is a fill prefix and/or a `left-margin’, insert them
on the new line if the line would have been blank.
Indent following line afterwards.
With arg n, insert n newlines.”
(interactive “*p”)
(save-excursion
(open-line n)
(next-line n)
(indent-according-to-mode)))
(define-key php-mode-map “\r” ‘reindent-then-newline-and-indent)
(define-key php-mode-map “\C-c\C-c” ‘comment-or-uncomment-region-or-line)
(define-key php-mode-map “\M-;” ‘terminate-line)
(define-key php-mode-map “\C-o” ‘open-line-indent)
I turn php-mode-force-pear on, since I contribute to PEAR and follow their CS in all my code.
I’ve added your terminate-line to my config. Thanks! =)
For open-line-indent – open-line doesn’t seem to do things like add the * prefix for block comments. When do you tend to use it?
In other news, I so have to figure out how to turn off smart quotes in Wordpress…
Hello.
I have problem with install php mode for my emacs editor.
I can`t find the directory .emacs, and i don`t now were I can put th php-mode.el.
Could You help me to do that. I need the php mode, and emacs is my est editor.
Hello, Andreu! Here’s what I’d suggest:
That should take care of most of it. Good luck and have fun!
Hey Sacha,
Is there any chance you could give instructions on how to setup php-mode on a windows install of emacs?
emacs is my favorite editor, but i just don’t have a good linux box to program on right now, and i haven’t been able to figure out how to get this working in windows yet 
thanks!
hey sacha,
any chance you could give instructions on how to setup php-mode on a windows emacs install? it’s my favorite editor, but just don’t have access to a linux box right now, and haven’t been able to figure out how to get this to work in windows
thanks!
Step 1: Install VMware. Step 2: Install Ubuntu in a VM image…
@greg
I found the answer to most my questions in this document. Chapter 3, “Installing Emacs” in particular. I used the register method and it worked fine.It makes it easy to emulate Unix behavior. Note that you need a newer version of Emacs (I tried 21.3 at first and that didn’t work) installed.
I get the following error when I try to open emacs with the php-mode enabled:
An error has occurred while loading `c:/.emacs’:
Symbol’s function definition is void: c-lang-const
It appears to be coming from lines 297-303 in the php-mode.el file:
(defconst php-class-key
(concat
“\\(” (regexp-opt php-class-decl-kwds) “\\)\\s-+”
(c-lang-const c-symbol-key c) ;; Class name.
“\\(\\s-+extends\\s-+” (c-lang-const c-symbol-key c) “\\)?” ;; Name of superclass.
“\\(\\s-+implements\\s-+[^{]+{\\)?”)) ;; List of any adopted protocols.
Is there a dependency I’m missing?
@martin:
PHP mode depends on cc-mode; the error you report comes from using too old a version of cc-mode. It happened to me and I upgraded my cc-mode in a 21.2 emacs installation; cc-mode loaded fine, but then I got a different error when loading a php file. The quick fix was to just install a more recent emacs (22.3) and then add php mode to the new install.
[...] Emacs está configurado para reconocer ciertas extensiones de archivo y abrir el modo correspondiente. Pero ¿cómo hacemos para indicarle que abra cierto tipo de archivo en cierto modo? Este artículo nos indica como. A pesar de que está hecho para PHP, es fácil adaptarlo para cualquier otro lenguaje. Emacs and PHP tutorial: php-mode [...]
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