Improve code by using current standards on strict types

[ghost]

Description:

I took the time to upgrade the code to current PHP 8.x coding standards but without causing any issues with older PHP versions.

• I've tested the improved code with PHP 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 8.0, 8.1 and 8.2.
• I've run PHPStan at level 8 and received no errors or warnings.
• I've kept the original function parameters so as not to cause any breakage.
• Unfortunately some types are wrong and had to be fixed, this may cause some issues.

The old code had a lot of issues with mixed types, like testing for empty on boolean values and expecting a string concatenation. I avoided doing changes to the code that did not directly relate to strict types, my main objective is to have a good starting point for the next generation of code. My next objective is to format the code to PSR standards, so the code is more readable.

Please let me know what you think about these changes.

Thank you.

Review

• Functional review done
• Potential edge cases thought about (behavior of the code with strange input, with strange internal state or possible interactions with other Matomo subsystems)
• Usability review done (is anything maybe unclear or think about anything that would cause people to reach out to support)
• Security review done
• Wording review done
• Code review done
• Tests were added if useful/possible
• Reviewed for breaking changes
• Developer changelog updated if needed
• Documentation added if needed
• Existing documentation updated if needed

[ghost]

For those who want to run PHPStan, here is the configuration file I use:

parameters:
    level: 8
    tipsOfTheDay: false
    checkMissingIterableValueType: false
    reportUnmatchedIgnoredErrors: true
    polluteScopeWithLoopInitialAssignments: false
    polluteScopeWithAlwaysIterableForeach: false
    checkExplicitMixedMissingReturn: true
    checkFunctionNameCase: true
    checkInternalClassCaseSensitivity: true
    reportMaybesInMethodSignatures: true
    reportMaybesInPropertyPhpDocTypes: true
    reportStaticMethodSignatures: true
    checkUninitializedProperties: true
    rememberPossiblyImpureFunctionValues: true
    treatPhpDocTypesAsCertain: false
    #phpVersion: 70200
    #phpVersion: 70300
    #phpVersion: 70400
    #phpVersion: 80000
    #phpVersion: 80100
    phpVersion: 80200

    paths:
        - ./MatomoTracker.php

Save it as phpstan.neon in the same directory as your MatomoTracker.php file.

Run with:

phpstan analyse --memory-limit 1G -c ./phpstan.neon

[ghost]

PSR formatting. I did not follow all the rules, because that would require to remove the extra commands at the bottom of the file, PSR requires that a loadable class does NOT contain extra code outside the class.

[ghost]

Removed undocumented RuntimeException that causes problems, fixes bug #88.

[ghost]

Remove static stuff, make the class more compatible with object oriented designs, fixes bug #14.

[marineusde]

Very good work!

But I have one little question:

• why do you make all the attributes public and not protected? There are some intelligent setters where you can add some more attributes for one type, like setPerformanceTimings()

A succession maybe for a discussion:

• add phpstan in the composer.json to use it in the run_tests.sh for the pipeline in gitlab
• just use PHP 8.0+ or 8.1 cause PHP < 8.0 is not supported anymore and < 8.1 in 2 month. After the break we can use types directly for the attributes and methods. If you want, I can do this.
• a version upgrade to 3.x for all these changes

[ghost]

Thank you for your kind words.

About the public attributes. It is a great question and I'd appreciate your suggestions, my thinking is this: keep everything backward compatible (as much as possible), since the attributes did not appear as protected in the first place I let them be public. So we have both worlds: $object->requestTimeout = 1; and $object->setRequestTimeout(1); both do the same thing.

About PHP version support. Currently (matomo 4.x) requires PHP v7.2.5 or greater, maybe we need to keep that as a minimum? or is this project independent? Of course my personal preference is PHP v8.0 as a minimum because that is supported by Enterprise Linux distros (RHEL 8.x, Alma 8.x, Rocky 8.x, Oracle 8.x).

Is there a review procedure for my changes? 🥲

[marineusde]

I think, the Matomo-Project is not the Tracker. The code would be much better and easier with PHP 8+. The most of the popular PHP-projects need 8.x+ now cause its not safe to use older versions.