Finding source of class/methods quickly?

[fizznotch]

Does anyone have any tips on how to quickly find the file that would contain the class definition of a specific object?

I often find myself wanting to look up the definition of an object to be sure that I know how it is defined, or to learn more about what it does and I would prefer to be able to quickly look through the source code on my wamp development folder.

For example, I am looking at an older component I wrote and want to remind myself what

Code: Select all

JHtml::_('formbehavior.chosen, select')

does. In this case I ended up searching through the 'libraries' directory for a string 'function _(' until I found the right file. I have a feeling that this isn't the most efficient way to find the definition code!

I've tried using the api.joomla.com site but that doesn't see to point me back to the correct file in my installation (and I couldn't see how to easily search the api index, or how to view the source code)

Many thanks in advance !

[toivo]

There is an application, written in Perl, called PHPXref, available from http:/phpxref.sourceforge.net. It can still be useful, even though it has not been maintained for several years and therefore lacks support for the latest features in OOP.

[deleted user]

JHtml is one of those funny beasts. The underscore method is really a proxy loader method to a custom callback based on some other rules (if the string has no dots, it's a method in the JHtml class; in a string with one dot the first segment is prefixed with JHtml to create a new class name (in this case JHtmlFormbehavior) and the second segment the method in that class).

If you're using PhpStorm, it has some inbuilt logic to help resolve that JHtml stuff. Otherwise, most IDEs have some functionality where you can jump direct to the source method. And when all else fails, search works.

[fizznotch]

Thanks very much for the quick reply and for the explanation heads up on how the underscore method resolves what to use!

with respect to IDEs , I've been using Sublime Text 3, but I'm just installing eclipse to try that out.