PHP Best Practices

Writing production-quality PHP means following community standards for code style, security, and architecture.

1 - Always Use Strict Types

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

2 - PSR Standards

• PSR-1 — Basic coding standard (class names TitleCase, methods camelCase)
• PSR-4 — Autoloading (namespace matches directory path)
• PSR-12 — Extended coding style (spaces, braces, blank lines)

3 - Security Checklist

• Use prepared statements — never raw SQL with user input
• Hash passwords with password_hash()
• Escape output with htmlspecialchars()
• Validate every input before processing
• Use HTTPS for all pages
• Set HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite on cookies
• Implement CSRF protection on all state-changing forms
• Keep composer dependencies updated

4 - Code Quality Tools

# Static analysis — catch bugs before runtime
composer require --dev phpstan/phpstan
./vendor/bin/phpstan analyse src/ --level=8

# Code style fixer
composer require --dev friendsofphp/php-cs-fixer
./vendor/bin/php-cs-fixer fix src/

# Security audit
composer audit

5 - Use a Framework

• Laravel — full-stack, batteries-included, ideal for web apps
• Symfony — enterprise-grade, component-based
• Slim — lightweight micro-framework for APIs