Release 5.0.0

Parser Reflection 5.0.0

This release brings the library to full PHP 8.6 reflection parity ahead of the PHP 8.6 GA (planned 2026-11-19): parameter doc comments, scope-aware property accessibility, readonly property defaults, partial function application, and the 8.6 attribute-API additions are all reflected statically from the AST — without loading the reflected code into memory. All 8.6 behavior is validated against PHP 8.6.0RC2 and guarded by runtime version checks, so the library runs identically on PHP 8.5. Tracked in epic #219.

💥 Breaking changes

• PHP 8.5 or newer is now required (previously >=8.4) — #218. The CI matrix runs PHP 8.5 (lowest + highest deps) with PHP 8.6 as experimental.
• nikic/php-parser: ^5.9 is now required — the first release parsing PHP 8.6 partial-application placeholders (ArgPlaceholder) — #224
• Named attribute arguments are now keyed by name in ReflectionAttribute::getArguments(), matching native reflection (previously they were collapsed into a positional list) — #225
• ReflectionClassConstant::__toString() now prints the constant's doc comment like native reflection, and renders boolean values as true/false on PHP 8.6+ (following the native rendering change) — #225, #223

✨ PHP 8.6 API coverage

• ReflectionParameter::getDocComment() — doc comments on parameters (plain, promoted, variadic, by-ref, combined with attributes), byte-for-byte native parity; available on every supported runtime. Known limitation: a doc comment written after a parameter is dropped by PHP-Parser — #221
• ReflectionProperty::isReadable() / isWritable() — scope-aware accessibility emulation covering visibility, asymmetric (set) visibility, readonly (incl. the implicit protected(set)), property hooks, virtual properties, and object initialization state; validated against native 8.6 across ~12,800 combinations. Deliberate divergence: scope classes are resolved statically, never autoloaded — #222
• Readonly property defaults — hasDefaultValue() / getDefaultValue() / getDefaultProperties() for readonly properties with defaults, verified against PHP 8.6.0RC2 across scalar, const-expression, class-constant, enum-case and array defaults — #223
• Partial Function Application — sources using f(?), f(name: ?) and f(1, ...) reflect cleanly on every host runtime; placeholder arguments in constant-expression positions degrade into a catchable ReflectionException (the same contract as first-class callables) — #224
• Attribute API additions: ReflectionAttribute::getShortName(), getNamespaceName(), inNamespace() and ReflectionConstant::inNamespace() implemented (the inherited native implementations fatal on parsed attributes) — #225
• #[\Override] on class constants (incl. interface and enum constants) and __debugInfo() on enums are fully reflected — #225
• Internal functions newly deprecated in 8.6 (strcoll() et al.) report isDeprecated() and their #[\Deprecated] payload correctly through the native fallback — #215

🐛 Bug fixes

• Fixed a latent fatal in getDefaultValueExpression() on typed properties/parameters without a default value — #223
• isVirtual() no longer misreports a property whose short-form get hook references its own backing store — #222

🔧 Internal & CI

• PHP 8.6 test scaffolding (FileWith*86.php stub convention with PHP_VERSION_ID >= 80600 guards) and a deprecation-clean audit against the "Deprecations for PHP 8.6" RFC (no hits) — #220
• The experimental PHP 8.6 CI rows are clearly labeled and their real outcome is written to the run summary — #220
• Dev dependencies: phpunit/phpunit ^13.3, rector/rector ^2.6.7 (required: Rector preloads its bundled php-parser under PHPUnit ≥ 12, so the bundle must also be ≥ 5.9)

Full Changelog: 4.0.0...5.0.0

---

Known follow-ups (out of this release's scope): #233, #234, #235, and possibly mirroring the new 8.6 getDefaultValue() deprecation in the parsed implementation.