How does PHPStorm find usages of function definitions?
I've come across many questions such as this, but the solutions vary and some don't even have a solutions. In most questions the OP states this isn't working while someone else reports they can do it with no issues. It seems clear to me this is highly dependent on each individual's configuration/setup. Obviously it is not working for me, but rather than post a question about how to solve my particular situation I figured it'd be better to learn how PHPStorm determines usages of a function definition. Hopefully the result will be a list of things to check should this feature not work for someone (beyond "Validate Caches/Restart" and upgrading to the most recent release).
For clarity, the issue is this. I have a class with a method "ClassA::Method1". I compose ClassA into other classes, "ClassB" and "ClassC" - each of which make use of "ClassA::Method1". I'm trying to go to the method definition in "ClassA" of "Method1", right click on it, choose "Find Usages" and expect it to report back to me every use of it in the classes "ClassB" and "ClassC" (or any others which happen to use it).
How does PHPStorm determine usages? Is it based on annotations? Namespaces? Combination of both? Or something else entirely?
Much appreciation,
Dan
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I may have figured this out through trial and error. It seems to go by namespaces/type hinting and the PSR-4 standard. However it does not seem like PhpStorm has the capability to find usages of concrete class methods if you're programming to interfaces. Particularly when the concrete class extends an abstract class and implements an interface which extends an interface the abstract class implements. I've developed a gist (with comments) to illustrate this.
https://gist.github.com/dlanz/484c1584b5cbe054b9402bde56afae81
In short, if you're programming to interfaces, you must use "Find Usages" on the interface. If an interface extends another interface and you want to only find usages of the extending interface but for a method it inherited - you're either out of luck, or you must redefine the interfaced method in the extending interface. Or you can just never extend interfaces, but sometimes it makes sense to.
Hello Dan,
It appears that we already have a related request submitted to our tracker here: <https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-10508>. Please vote for it (thumb up button) in order to move it up in the queue and receive notifications regarding the progress of the issue. See more information on working with tracker at <https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/207241135-How-to-follow-YouTrack-issues-and-receive-notifications>.