When working on PHP projects – well on any project for that matter – I always like to commit code that does not contain embarrassing mistakes. I created a simple git pre commit hook that I always install locally on my git repositories to warn me before actually commiting if I have any syntax errors.

#!/bin/sh

if git rev-parse --verify HEAD >/dev/null 2>&1
then
  against=HEAD
else
  # Initial commit: diff against an empty tree object
  against=4b825dc642cb6eb9a060e54bf8d69288fbee4904
fi

BADWORDS='var_dump|die|todo'

EXITCODE=0
FILES=`git diff --cached --diff-filter=ACMRTUXB --name-only $against --`

for FILE in $FILES ; do
  if [ "${FILE##*.}" = "php" ]; then

    # Run all php files through php -l and grep for `illegal` words

    /usr/bin/php -l "$FILE" > /dev/null
    if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then
      EXITCODE=1
    fi

    /bin/grep -H -i -n -E "${BADWORDS}" $FILE
    if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
      EXITCODE=1
    fi

  fi
done

if [ $EXITCODE -gt 0 ]; then
  echo
  echo 'Fix the above erros or use:'
  echo ' git commit --no-validate'
  echo
fi

exit $EXITCODE

This hook will run every time I use git commit and it will check all my .php files I am about to commit for syntax errors by running each file through PHP lint. Second it does a grep on each file and checks for bad words like die, var_dump and todo.

If a syntax error or bad word was found it is printed to stdout and the hook will exit with an exit code of 1 which in turn cancels the git commit procedure.

If I am really sure that I would like to commit code that does not comply with the above rules I can always use git commit --no-validate to skip the pre commit process.

In my opinion this is a non obtrusive way to warn me about stupidities.