Error Identifier: property.internal

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Every error reported by PHPStan has an error identifier. Here’s a list of all error identifiers. In PHPStan Pro you can see the error identifier next to each error and filter errors by their identifiers.

Code example #

<?php declare(strict_types = 1);

namespace Vendor {
	class Service {
		/** @internal */
		public int $connectionCount = 0;

		public function getConnectionCount(): int {
			return $this->connectionCount;
		}
	}
}

namespace App {
	function checkConnections(\Vendor\Service $service): int {
		return $service->connectionCount; // error: Access to internal property Vendor\Service::$connectionCount from outside its root namespace Vendor.
	}
}

Why is it reported? #

The code accesses a property that has been marked as @internal in its PHPDoc. Internal properties are implementation details of a package or namespace and are not meant to be used by external code. They may change or be removed without notice in future versions.

PHPStan checks internal access based on the root namespace. Code within the same root namespace is allowed to access internal properties, but code from a different root namespace is not.

How to fix it #

Use the public API of the class instead of accessing internal properties:

 namespace App {
 	function checkConnections(\Vendor\Service $service): int {
-		return $service->connectionCount;
+		return $service->getConnectionCount();
 	}
 }

If the class does not provide a public method for the information, consider requesting one from the library maintainer, or use a different approach that does not rely on internal implementation details.

How to ignore this error #

You can use the identifier property.internal to ignore this error using a comment:

// @phpstan-ignore property.internal
codeThatProducesTheError();

You can also use only the identifier key to ignore all errors of the same type in your configuration file in the ignoreErrors parameter:

parameters:
	ignoreErrors:
		-
			identifier: property.internal

Rules that report this error #

• PHPStan\Rules\InternalTag\RestrictedInternalPropertyUsageExtension [1] [2]