PSR Standards in PHP: A Practical Guide for Developers

Are you tired of wrestling with inconsistent PHP codebases or struggling to make different packages work together? You’re not alone! In this series, we’ll explore how PHP-FIG’s PSR standards can transform your development experience.

What is PHP-FIG?

PHP-FIG is a group of PHP project representatives working together to advance the PHP ecosystem. Their primary contribution is the PSR system, which defines coding standards and interfaces that enable better interoperability between PHP packages and frameworks.

Why PSRs Matter

PSRs solve several critical challenges in PHP development:

• Code Consistency: Standardized coding styles make code more readable
• Interoperability: Common interfaces allow different packages to work together seamlessly
• Best Practices: Established patterns improve code quality and maintainability

Series Overview

This series will cover all accepted PSRs in detail. Here’s what we’ve published so far:

1. PSR-1: Basic Coding Standard - Published Jan 6, 2025
2. PSR-3: Logger Interface - Coming Jan 7, 2025
3. PSR-4: Autoloading Standard - Coming Jan 8, 2025
4. PSR-6: Caching Interface - Coming Jan 9, 2025
5. PSR-7: HTTP Message Interface - Coming Jan 10, 2025
6. PSR-11: Container Interface - Coming Jan 11, 2025
7. PSR-12: Extended Coding Style - Coming Jan 12, 2025
8. PSR-13: Hypermedia Links - Coming Jan 13, 2025
9. PSR-14: Event Dispatcher - Coming Jan 14, 2025
10. PSR-15: HTTP Handlers - Coming Jan 15, 2025
11. PSR-16: Simple Cache - Coming Jan 16, 2025

Stay tuned! We’ll update this post with links as each new article is published.

Practical Learning

Each post will include:

• Detailed explanation of the standard
• Practical implementation examples
• Common pitfalls and solutions
• Integration with popular frameworks

Getting Started

To follow along with this series:

1. Clone our companion repository:

git clone https://github.com/jonesrussell/php-fig-guide.git
cd php-fig-guide
composer install

1. Each PSR implementation has its own:
   • Directory under src/
   • Complete working examples
   • Tests to verify compliance
   • Tagged release (e.g., v0.1.0 for PSR-1)
2. Use the provided Composer scripts:

# Check coding standards
composer check-style

# Fix coding standards automatically
composer fix-style

# Run tests
composer test

Resources

• PHP-FIG Website
• PSR Index
• Our Example Repository