International PHP Conference Berlin 2025

Attribute syntax

There are several parts to the attributes syntax. First, an attribute declaration is always enclosed with a starting #[ and a corresponding ending ]. Inside, one or many attributes are listed, separated by comma. The attribute name is an unqualified, qualified or fully-qualified name as described in Using Namespaces Basics. Arguments to the attribute are optional, but are enclosed in the usual parenthesis (). Arguments to attributes can only be literal values or constant expressions. Both positional and named arguments syntax can be used.

Attribute names and their arguments are resolved to a class and the arguments are passed to its constructor, when an instance of the attribute is requested through the Reflection API. As such a class should be introduced for each attribute.

Example #1 Attribute Syntax

<?php
// a.php
namespace MyExample;

use
Attribute;

#[
Attribute]
class
MyAttribute
{
const
VALUE = 'value';

private
$value;

public function
__construct($value = null)
{
$this->value = $value;
}
}

// b.php

namespace Another;

use
MyExample\MyAttribute;

#[
MyAttribute]
#[
\MyExample\MyAttribute]
#[
MyAttribute(1234)]
#[
MyAttribute(value: 1234)]
#[
MyAttribute(MyAttribute::VALUE)]
#[
MyAttribute(array("key" => "value"))]
#[
MyAttribute(100 + 200)]
class
Thing
{
}

#[
MyAttribute(1234), MyAttribute(5678)]
class
AnotherThing
{
}
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User Contributed Notes 1 note

up
3
yarns dot purport0n at icloud dot com
11 months ago
It wasn't obvious to me for a while but you can subclass attributes

https://3v4l.org/TrMTe

<?php

#[Attribute(Attribute::TARGET_PROPERTY)]
class
PropertyAttributes
{
public function
__construct(
public readonly ?
string $name = null,
public readonly ?
string $label = null,
) {}
}

#[
Attribute(Attribute::TARGET_PROPERTY)]
class
IntegerPropertyAttributes extends PropertyAttributes
{
public function
__construct(
?
string $name = null,
?
string $label = null,
public readonly ?
int $default = null,
public readonly ?
int $min = null,
public readonly ?
int $max = null,
public readonly ?
int $step = null,
) {
parent::__construct($name, $label);
}
}

#[
Attribute(Attribute::TARGET_PROPERTY)]
class
FloatPropertyAttributes extends PropertyAttributes
{
public function
__construct(
?
string $name = null,
?
string $label = null,
public readonly ?
float $default = null,
public readonly ?
float $min = null,
public readonly ?
float $max = null,
) {
parent::__construct($name, $label);
}
}

class
MyClass
{
#[
IntegerPropertyAttributes('prop', 'property: ', 5, 0, 10, 1)]
public
int $prop;
}

$refl = new ReflectionProperty('MyClass', 'prop');
$attributes = $refl->getAttributes();

foreach (
$attributes as $attribute) {
var_dump($attribute->getName());
var_dump($attribute->getArguments());
var_dump($attribute->newInstance());
}
?>
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