Naming Placeholder Identifier

ID

php.naming_placeholder_identifier

Severity

info

Remediation Complexity

trivial

Remediation Risk

medium

Remediation Effort

low

Resource

Naming Convention

Language

Php

Tags

naming

Description

Reports identifiers whose name is a meaningless placeholder such as foo, bar, baz, qux, tmp, temp, obj, stuff or thing. Function and method names, parameters, foreach value variables, bare-variable assignment targets and class names are all checked. The match is case-insensitive but exact, so $dataSource is not flagged. A binding named after its declared type (Data $data) is exempt. The placeholder list is configurable through the placeholderNames property.

Rationale

Placeholder names are artefacts of throwaway prototyping. They tell the reader nothing about what the value holds or what the function does, forcing a trip to the implementation to recover intent. A name like $tmp or foo() that survives into committed code is a small but constant tax on every future reader. Naming the thing after its role makes the code self-documenting.

<?php
function foo($bar)             // FLAW - function name and parameter are placeholders
{
    $tmp = compute();          // FLAW - placeholder local
    return $tmp;
}

function totalDue($invoice)    // OK - intent-revealing names
{
    $balance = compute();      // OK
    return $balance;
}

function consume(Data $data) {} // OK - parameter named after its declared type

Remediation

Rename the identifier to describe what it represents — the value’s role, the function’s effect, the type’s responsibility. A binding named after its declared type (Data $data) is acceptable. Adjust the placeholderNames property to match project conventions.

References