Upgrade your project with Rector¶

Rector is a tool that can help you with upgrading to the new versions of Symfony, Doctrine, PHP. It can automatically refactor your code to use new features, remove deprecated code, or fix bugs. Rector can also help you with other tasks, such as code style fixes or code quality improvements.

Installation¶

To install Rector, run:

composer require rector/rector --dev

Configuration¶

Rector needs a configuration file to know what changes to apply. After a first launch, Rector will generate a rector.php file in the root of your project.

You can also create the configuration file manually.

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

use Rector\Config\RectorConfig;

return RectorConfig::configure()
    ->withPaths([
        __DIR__ . '/app',
    ])
    ->withRules([
        // add rules here
    ])
    ->withSets([
        // add sets here
    ]);

See the Rector documentation for more information.

Usage¶

Rector has a predefined set of rules that can be used to refactor your code.

For example, to make your application compatible with Symfony 6, you can use the SymfonySetList::SYMFONY_60 set.

    \Rector\Symfony\Set\SymfonySetList::SYMFONY_60

When you have the config file ready, you can run Rector with the following command:

php vendor/bin/rector

Tips¶

Always run Rector on a clean branch to avoid conflicts with other changes.
Run Rector with a small number of rules at a time to make the changes in the code understandable and reviewable.
Thoroughly review the changes made by Rector to ensure that they are correct.
Run php phing standards-fix to make changes made by Rector adhere your code style.
Run your tests after running Rector to ensure that the changes did not introduce any regressions.

Conclusion¶

Rector is a powerful tool that can help you automate the tedious repetitive tasks. It can save you a lot of time and effort.