Chris@0: The ReflectionDocBlock Component [![Build Status](https://secure.travis-ci.org/phpDocumentor/ReflectionDocBlock.png)](https://travis-ci.org/phpDocumentor/ReflectionDocBlock)
Chris@0: ================================
Chris@0: 
Chris@0: Introduction
Chris@0: ------------
Chris@0: 
Chris@0: The ReflectionDocBlock component of phpDocumentor provides a DocBlock parser
Chris@0: that is 100% compatible with the [PHPDoc standard](http://phpdoc.org/docs/latest).
Chris@0: 
Chris@0: With this component, a library can provide support for annotations via DocBlocks
Chris@0: or otherwise retrieve information that is embedded in a DocBlock.
Chris@0: 
Chris@0: Installation
Chris@0: ------------
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: ```bash
Chris@12: composer require phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock
Chris@12: ```
Chris@0: 
Chris@0: Usage
Chris@0: -----
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: In order to parse the DocBlock one needs a DocBlockFactory that can be
Chris@12: instantiated using its `createInstance` factory method like this:
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: ```php
Chris@12: $factory  = \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlockFactory::createInstance();
Chris@12: ```
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: Then we can use the `create` method of the factory to interpret the DocBlock. 
Chris@12: Please note that it is also possible to provide a class that has the 
Chris@12: `getDocComment()` method, such as an object of type `ReflectionClass`, the
Chris@12: create method will read that if it exists.
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: ```php
Chris@12: $docComment = <<<DOCCOMMENT
Chris@12: /**
Chris@12:  * This is an example of a summary.
Chris@12:  *
Chris@12:  * This is a Description. A Summary and Description are separated by either
Chris@12:  * two subsequent newlines (thus a whiteline in between as can be seen in this
Chris@12:  * example), or when the Summary ends with a dot (`.`) and some form of
Chris@12:  * whitespace.
Chris@12:  */
Chris@12: DOCCOMMENT;
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: $docblock = $factory->create($docComment);
Chris@12: ```
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: The `create` method will yield an object of type `\phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock`
Chris@12: whose methods can be queried:
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: ```php
Chris@12: // Contains the summary for this DocBlock
Chris@12: $summary = $docblock->getSummary();
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: // Contains \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock\Description object
Chris@12: $description = $docblock->getDescription();
Chris@0: 
Chris@12: // You can either cast it to string
Chris@12: $description = (string) $docblock->getDescription();
Chris@12: 
Chris@12: // Or use the render method to get a string representation of the Description.
Chris@12: $description = $docblock->getDescription()->render();
Chris@12: ```
Chris@12: 
Chris@12: > For more examples it would be best to review the scripts in the [`/examples` folder](/examples).