tool for maintaining the php source code

Question

I am trying to study the source code of a PHP application. Now that the code is very big, I wanted to use some kind of software that can show me all classes and functions defined so that I can easily go through it easily. Whenever I click any function its definition must open.

Answer 1

This is not a PHP-specific need (it comes up for really any language that people write large applications in).

What you're looking for is known as an Integrated Development Environment. There are many of them which provide various user interfaces, etc. I'd say my favorite is Eclipse, which supports several programming languages - the PHP version is here.

Eclipse also does some other good stuff. I recommend reading this thread if you have time. If you learn nothing else from it, Ctrl+Shift+L gives you a list of keyboard combinations you can press to do different things, which is helpful to my Swiss cheese memory...

Answer 2

Eclipse with the PHP Development Tools works fine for me. Or, a little bit more specialized, you could evaluate the Zend Studio.

Answer 3

You need an IDE.

Answer 4

Even without comments, any of the PHP doc parsers should be able to provide this, e.g. phpxref, phpdocumentor

Answer 5

In addition to some of the other suggestions (use an IDE, or phpdocumentor), I think Doxygen should be able to give you what you want.