PHP version migration

To see how migration from one PHP version to another will affect your code quality, employ the php-migration Qodana scenario. If you run this scenario, you will be able to see the codebase problems that will arise after you upgrade to a newer PHP version.

This feature is supported by the PHP linter and available under the Ultimate and Ultimate Plus licenses and their trial versions.

You can configure this scenario either in the qodana.yaml file or invoke it using the CLI.

                    script:
                      name: php-migration
                      parameters:
                          fromLevel: <old-php-version>
                          toLevel: <upgraded-php-version>
                

This snippet specifies the php-migration scenario using the name parameter. The fromLevel and toLevel parameters denote the old and upgraded PHP versions respectively.

This is the example of the qodana.yaml configuration:

                    script:
                      name: php-migration
                      parameters:
                          fromLevel: 7.1
                          toLevel: 8.0
                

Here, you have two options for running this feature:

                            qodana scan \
                               -e QODANA_TOKEN="<cloud-project-token>" \
                               --script php-migration:<old-php-version>-to-<upgraded-php-version>
                        

                            docker run \
                               -v <source-directory>/:/data/project/ \
                               -e QODANA_TOKEN="<cloud-project-token>" \
                               jetbrains/qodana-<image> \
                               --script php-migration:<old-php-version>-to-<upgraded-php-version>
                        

This snippet specifies the php-migration scenario for the --script option followed by the colon : character, and PHP versions separated by the -to- character combination. The QODANA_TOKEN variable refers to the project token.

This is the example of the CLI command:

                            qodana scan \
                               -e QODANA_TOKEN="<cloud-project-token>" \
                               --script php-migration:7.1-to-8.0
                        

                            docker run \
                               -v <source-directory>/:/data/project/ \
                               -e QODANA_TOKEN="<cloud-project-token>" \
                               jetbrains/qodana-<image> \
                               --script php-migration:7.1-to-8.0
                        

Example

To show how the language migration feature works, the following PHP code snippet will be inspected:

        <?php
            function f($a) {
                switch ($a) {
                    case 1:
                        return 1;
                    case 2:
                        return 2;
                    default:
                        return 3;
                }
            }
    

If you run Qodana with version 7.1 of the PHP runtime, the report will contain the following problems:

        Analysis results: 2 problems detected

        Grouping problems by severity: Info: 2
        Name                                               Severity Count problems
        Missing return type declaration                    Info     1
        Unused declaration                                 Info     1

    

Running Qodana with version 8.0 of the PHP runtime will produce the following output:

        Analysis results: 3 problems detected

        Grouping problems by severity: Info: 3
        Name                                               Severity Count problems
        Missing return type declaration                    Info     1
        Unused declaration                                 Info     1
        'switch' can be replaced with 'match' expression   Info     1

    

Running Qodana with the migration feature enabled will produce the following report:

        Analysis results: 1 problems detected

        Grouping problems by severity: Info: 1
        Name                                               Severity Count problems
        'switch' can be replaced with 'match' expression   Info     1
    

As you can see, the migration report contains only the problem contained in the version 8.0 report and missing from the version 7.1 report.

08 August 2025