Associating git hooks with php syntax check

Many a times we have faced this problem that when we commit something and it breaks something on the server due to some syntax error.

I know that these can be caught by IDEs and good editors, but sometimes there might be an syntax error introduced after a code merge conflict resolution and commit.

To address this, we can use git pre-commit hooks to check for any syntax errors in the to be committed files.

There is a good script I found which does this at https://github.com/ReekenX/phpcheck-git

Steps to add pre-commit php syntax check with git:

(Issue below commands in your console)

1. $ cd /project/directory/

2. $ cd .git/hooks/

3. Get the pre-commit script file from above github page or from direct link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ReekenX/phpcheck-git/master/pre-commit

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ReekenX/phpcheck-git/master/pre-commit

4. Give execute permission to it.

$ chmod +x pre-commit

This should be it :)

Now if you try to commit any php file, it will display message about any syntax error. If there are, then it will specify the file, error and line number where the error took place and will abort the commit.

This small tool will help us in better checking our code before being committed :)