The ReflectionDocBlock component of phpDocumentor provides a DocBlock parser that is 100% compatible with the PHPDoc standard.

With this component, a library can provide support for annotations via DocBlocks or otherwise retrieve information that is embedded in a DocBlock.

Note: this is a core component of phpDocumentor and is constantly being optimized for performance.

You can install the component in the following ways:

• Use the official Github repository (https://github.com/phpDocumentor/ReflectionDocBlock)
• Via Composer (http://packagist.org/packages/phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock)

The ReflectionDocBlock component is designed to work in an identical fashion to PHP's own Reflection extension (http://php.net/manual/en/book.reflection.php).

Parsing can be initiated by instantiating the \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock() class and passing it a string containing a DocBlock (including asterisks) or by passing an object supporting the getDocComment() method.

Examples of objects having the getDocComment() method are the ReflectionClass and the ReflectionMethod classes of the PHP Reflection extension

Example:

$class = new ReflectionClass('MyClass');
$phpdoc = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock($class);

or

$docblock = <<<DOCBLOCK
/**
 * This is a short description.
 *
 * This is a *long* description.
 *
 * @return void
 */
DOCBLOCK;

$phpdoc = new \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock($docblock);