1The ReflectionDocBlock Component [![Build Status](https://secure.travis-ci.org/phpDocumentor/ReflectionDocBlock.png)](https://travis-ci.org/phpDocumentor/ReflectionDocBlock)
2================================
3
4Introduction
5------------
6
7The ReflectionDocBlock component of phpDocumentor provides a DocBlock parser
8that is 100% compatible with the [PHPDoc standard](http://phpdoc.org/docs/latest).
9
10With this component, a library can provide support for annotations via DocBlocks
11or otherwise retrieve information that is embedded in a DocBlock.
12
13Installation
14------------
15
16```bash
17composer require phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock
18```
19
20Usage
21-----
22
23In order to parse the DocBlock one needs a DocBlockFactory that can be
24instantiated using its `createInstance` factory method like this:
25
26```php
27$factory  = \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlockFactory::createInstance();
28```
29
30Then we can use the `create` method of the factory to interpret the DocBlock.
31Please note that it is also possible to provide a class that has the
32`getDocComment()` method, such as an object of type `ReflectionClass`, the
33create method will read that if it exists.
34
35```php
36$docComment = <<<DOCCOMMENT
37/**
38 * This is an example of a summary.
39 *
40 * This is a Description. A Summary and Description are separated by either
41 * two subsequent newlines (thus a whiteline in between as can be seen in this
42 * example), or when the Summary ends with a dot (`.`) and some form of
43 * whitespace.
44 */
45DOCCOMMENT;
46
47$docblock = $factory->create($docComment);
48```
49
50The `create` method will yield an object of type `\phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock`
51whose methods can be queried:
52
53```php
54// Contains the summary for this DocBlock
55$summary = $docblock->getSummary();
56
57// Contains \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock\Description object
58$description = $docblock->getDescription();
59
60// You can either cast it to string
61$description = (string) $docblock->getDescription();
62
63// Or use the render method to get a string representation of the Description.
64$description = $docblock->getDescription()->render();
65```
66
67> For more examples it would be best to review the scripts in the [`/examples` folder](/examples).
68