DevelopmentCodeFragment

Since: 2.3.0

Functions like vardump(), printr() etc. are normally only used during development and therefore such calls in production code are a good indicator that they were just forgotten.

Example

class SuspectCode {

    public function doSomething(array $items)
    {
        foreach ($items as $i => $item) {
            // …

            if ('qafoo' == $item) var_dump($i);

            // …
        }
    }
}

Source https://phpmd.org/rules/design.html#developmentcodefragment

Cognitive Complexity

Cognitive Complexity is a measure of how difficult a unit of code is to intuitively understand. Unlike Cyclomatic Complexity, which determines how difficult your code will be to test, Cognitive Complexity tells you how difficult your code will be to read and comprehend.

A method's cognitive complexity is based on a few simple rules:

• Code is not considered more complex when it uses shorthand that the language provides for collapsing multiple statements into one
• Code is considered more complex for each "break in the linear flow of the code"
• Code is considered more complex when "flow breaking structures are nested"

Further reading

• Cognitive Complexity docs
• Cognitive Complexity: A new way of measuring understandability

Having too many return statements in a function increases the function's essential complexity because the flow of execution is broken each time a return statement is encountered. This makes it harder to read and understand the logic of the function.

Noncompliant Code Example

With the default threshold of 3:

function myFunction(){ // Noncompliant as there are 4 return statements
  if (condition1) {
    return true;
  } else {
    if (condition2) {
      return false;
    } else {
      return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
}

ErrorControlOperator

Error suppression should be avoided if possible as it doesn't just suppress the error, that you are trying to stop, but will also suppress errors that you didn't predict would ever occur. Consider changing error_reporting() level and/or setting up your own error handler.

Example

function foo($filePath) {
    $file = @fopen($filPath); // hides exceptions
    $key = @$array[$notExistingKey]; // assigns null to $key
}

Source http://phpmd.org/rules/cleancode.html#errorcontroloperator