Automatic Method Signature Inheritance for Abstract Classes in PHP

[mohammadMghi]

Description

I’ve noticed something in PHP that could really improve the language if added as a feature.

Imagine this scenario:
You have an abstract class with a method called funcA(param1), and there are 40 subclasses that implement this method.

Now, suppose you want to add a second parameter, so funcA becomes funcA(param1, param2). Updating all 40 subclasses manually becomes tedious and error-prone.

It would be incredibly helpful if you could just update the method signature in the abstract class, and have all subclasses inherit the change automatically — without needing to modify each one individually.

This would make code much more maintainable and extensible.

[iluuu1994]

Hi @mohammadMghi. Treating missing parameters as compatible also means child implementations that call the parent will silently break by not handling the new parameter, because parent::funcA($param1); needs to be updated to parent::funcA($param1, $param2);. I highly suspect this is not a tradeoff internals are willing to accept, but feel free to try your lock on the internals mailing list.

[ddevsr]

In community, PHP already have tooling detection like PHPStan and automatic refactoring using Rector