Glossary¶
Here is a list of words, commonly used when using Exakat, with their definitions and their synonyms.
- A
- Analysis
- An Analysis is a pattern that may be detected in the code. The analysis has a human-redable description, and a specific implementation.
- AST
- The Abstract Syntax Tree : a representation of the PHP code as a graph. The AST is the first consisten organisation of the PHP tokens, after tokenization.
- Audit
- An Audit is the result of a set of Rules being run on a piece of code. The shape of the audit is the Report.
- B
- Bug
- A bug is a software malfunction, which leads to undesirable output, including the halt of the execution without results.
- C
- CIT
- Acronym for Class-Interface-Trait. Sometimes, this includes also Enum, as CITE. All those structures share the same namespace.
- CITE
- Acronym for Class-Interface-Trait-Enum. Sometimes, this excludes also Enum, as CIT.
- Cobbler
- The Exakat command to modify a piece of code.
- CPM
- Acronym for Constant-Property-Method.
- D
- Directive
- A configuration option.
- Dump
- The phase of execution, which prepare the results from the graph database to the data storage for reports.
- I
- Initialisation
- Set up of a data space by giving it a preset value.
- Inventory
- The collections of all the different values of a specific type of data, observed or measured. For example, variable names, functioncall frequency, or methods’s length.
- Issue
- The result of an analysis, when an analysis is applied to a code.
- L
- Load
- The phase of execution, which loads the source code into the central database.
- Lint
- The PHP execution phase, where the text file is read, and turned into tokens and checked for consistency.
- N
- Nullsafe
- A nullsafe operator is able to carry a function or fail graciously. In particular, it won’t stop the execution with a fatal error. For example, the null-safe operator ?-> or coalesce ??
- R
- Report
- A set of issues, gathered into a consistent format, after running the analysis on the code. A report may include multiple rulesets, and use various format, such as HTML, JSON or Text.
- Rule
- A synonym for Analysis. This may be more descriptive, and less related to implementation.
- Ruleset
- A consistent group of analysis, recognizable with a specific name.
- S
- Stubs
- Stubs are a set of PHP files which provide the methods, classes and interfaces signature for a library or component. The actual code is not provided, as the important information lies in the signature.
- T
- Token
- The atomic element of information in a PHP script. The PHP code is broken down into tokens, such as 123 or ‘if’ and then organized in a consisten AST before execution.