Self Documentation - PHP Reflection

My CMS, SiteCommander, contains over 30,000 lines of my PHP programming. As the system grew, I needed a way to get quick, up-to-date documentation for the hundreds of functions and classes I had created. Using PHP's core Reflection extension, I built an online reference card. Although I have hundreds of pages of change log information and other conventional documentation, my reference card always has the benefit of being 100% accurate because it runs from within the environment.

The documentation is not complete. Just enough information is provided to help me recall exact calling sequences. The reference also detects any deprecated code, again as a reminder not to use such calls.

My reference card only examines user functions and classes, not the full PHP environment. Because PHP has nearly 1800 functions and methods in its typical core, including the core would unreasonably clutter this reference tool.

This is what the classes section of the reference card looks like.

Here is one of the classes defined in the database access code (see example in table of contents above). Methods are shown with a green background and properties are shown with a white background. The yellow title bar shows the location of the class - filename, folder, and line number - making it easy to find the code for review.

Deprecated functions and classes are clearly indicated, which helps me know which code to avoid. Deprecated code must remain in the environment until no client deployment uses it.