• Setting the default coding standard
• Setting the default report format
• Hiding warnings by default
• Showing progress by default
• Using colors in output by default
• Changing the default severity levels
• Setting the default report width
• Setting the default encoding
• Setting the default tab width
• Setting the installed standard paths
• Setting the PHP version
• Ignoring errors when generating the exit code
• Ignoring warnings when generating the exit code
• Setting tool paths
  • CSSLint
  • Google Closure Linter
  • PHP
  • JSHint
  • JSLint
  • JavaScript Lint
  • Zend Code Analyzer

By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will use the PEAR coding standard if no standard is supplied on the command line. You can change the default standard by setting the default_standard configuration option.

$ phpcs --config-set default_standard Squiz

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will use the full report format if no format is supplied on the command line. You can change the default report format by setting the report_format configuration option.

$ phpcs --config-set report_format summary

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will show both errors and warnings for your code. You can hide warnings for a single script run by using the -n command line argument, but you can also enable this by default if you prefer. To hide warnings by default, set the show_warnings configuration option to 0.

$ phpcs --config-set show_warnings 0

Note: When warnings are hidden by default, you can use the -w command line argument to show them for a single script run.

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will run quietly and only print the report of errors and warnings at the end. If you want to know what is happening you can turn on progress output, but you can also enable this by default if you prefer. To show progress by default, set the show_progress configuration option to 1.

$ phpcs --config-set show_progress 1

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will not use colors in progress or report screen output. To use colors in output by default, set the colors configuration option to 1.

$ phpcs --config-set colors 1

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will show all errors and warnings with a severity level of 5 or greater. You can change these settings for a single script run by using the --severity, --error-severity and --warning-severity command line arguments, but you can also change the default settings if you prefer.

To change the default severity level to show all errors and warnings:

$ phpcs --config-set severity 1

To change the default severity levels to show all errors but only some warnings

$ phpcs --config-set error_severity 1
$ phpcs --config-set warning_severity 8

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will print all screen-based reports 80 characters wide. File paths will be truncated if they don't fit within this limit and error messages will be wrapped across multiple lines. You can increase the report width to show longer file paths and limit the wrapping of error messages using the --report-width command line argument, but you can also change the default report width by setting the report_width configuration option.

$ phpcs --config-set report_width 120

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will treat all source files as if they use UTF-8 encoding. If you need your source files to be processed using a specific encoding, you can specify the encoding using the --encoding command line argument, but you can also change the default encoding by setting the encoding configuration option.

$ phpcs --config-set encoding windows-1251

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will not convert tabs to spaces in checked files. Specifying a tab width will make PHP_CodeSniffer replace tabs with spaces. You can force PHP_CodeSniffer to replace tabs with spaces by default by setting the tab_width configuration option.

$ phpcs --config-set tab_width 4

When the tab width is set by default, the replacement of tabs with spaces can be disabled for a single script run by setting the tab width to zero.

$ phpcs --tab-width=0 /path/to/code

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will look inside its own src/Standards directory to find installed coding standards. An installed standard appears when you use the -i command line argument and can be referenced using a name instead of a path when using the --standard command line argument. You can add install paths by setting the installed_paths configuration option.

$ phpcs --config-set installed_paths /path/to/one,/path/to/two

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Some sniffs change their behaviour based on the version of PHP being used to run PHPCS. For example, a sniff that checks for namespaces may choose to ignore this check if the version of PHP does not include namespace support. Sometimes a code base that supports older PHP versions is checked using a newer PHP version. In this case, sniffs see the new PHP version and report errors that may not be correct. To let the sniffs know what version of PHP you are targeting, the php_version configuration option can be used.

$ phpcs --config-set php_version 50403

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will exit with a non-zero code if any errors or warnings are found. If you want to display errors to the user, but still return with a zero exit code if no warnings are found, you can set the ignore_errors_on_exit configuration option. This option is typically used by automated build tools so that a list of errors can be generated without failing the build.

$ phpcs --config-set ignore_errors_on_exit 1

If you want to generate a zero exit code in all cases, additionally set the ignore_warnings_on_exit config configuration option.

$ phpcs --config-set ignore_errors_on_exit 1
$ phpcs --config-set ignore_warnings_on_exit 1

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By default, PHP_CodeSniffer will exit with a non-zero code if any errors or warnings are found. If you want to display warnings to the user, but still return with a zero exit code if no errors are found, you can set the ignore_warnings_on_exit configuration option. This option is typically used by automated build tools so that a list of warnings can be generated without failing the build.

$ phpcs --config-set ignore_warnings_on_exit 1

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The Generic coding standard includes a sniff that will check each CSS file using CSS Lint. Use the csslint_path configuration option to tell the CSSLint sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set csslint_path /path/to/csslint

The Generic coding standard includes a sniff that will check each file using the Google Closure Linter, an open source JavaScript style checker from Google. Use the gjslint_path configuration option to tell the Google Closure Linter sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set gjslint_path /path/to/gjslint

The Generic coding standard includes a sniff that will check the syntax of each PHP file using the built-in PHP linter. Use the php_path configuration option to tell the Syntax sniff where to find the PHP binary.

$ phpcs --config-set php_path /path/to/php

The Generic coding standard includes a sniff that will check each JavaScript file using JSHint, a tool to detect errors and potential problems in JavaScript code. Use the jshint_path configuration option to tell the JSHint sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set jshint_path /path/to/jshint.js

As JSHint is just JavaScript code, you also need to install Rhino to be able to execute it. Use the rhino_path configuration option to tell the JSHint sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set rhino_path /path/to/rhino

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The Squiz coding standard includes a sniff that will check each JavaScript file using JSLint, a JavaScript program that looks for problems in JavaScript programs. Use the jslint_path configuration option to tell the JSLint sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set jslint_path /path/to/jslint.js

As JSLint is just JavaScript code, you also need to install Rhino to be able to execute it. Use the rhino_path configuration option to tell the JSLint sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set rhino_path /path/to/rhino

The Squiz coding standard includes a sniff that will check each JavaScript file using JavaScript Lint, a tool that checks all your JavaScript source code for common mistakes without actually running the script or opening the web page. Use the jsl_path configuration option to tell the JavaScript Lint sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set jsl_path /path/to/jsl

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The Zend coding standard includes a sniff that will check each file using the Zend Code Analyzer, a tool that comes with Zend Studio. Use the zend_ca_path configuration option to tell the Zend Code Analyzer sniff where to find the tool.

$ phpcs --config-set zend_ca_path /path/to/ZendCodeAnalyzer