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Error Identifier: pureMethod.void

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);

class Foo
{
	/** @phpstan-pure */
	public function doNothing(): void
	{
	}
}

Why is it reported? #

A method marked as @phpstan-pure must not have side effects and must return a meaningful value. A pure method that returns void serves no purpose – since it has no side effects and produces no return value, calling it has no observable effect. This is almost certainly a mistake: either the method should not be marked as pure, or it should return a value.

The exception is constructors, which are allowed to be pure and return void because their purpose is to initialize an object.

How to fix it #

If the method performs side effects, remove the @phpstan-pure annotation:

 class Foo
 {
-	/** @phpstan-pure */
 	public function doSomething(): void
 	{
 		file_put_contents('/tmp/log.txt', 'done');
 	}
 }

If the method truly is pure, it should return a value:

 class Foo
 {
 	/** @phpstan-pure */
-	public function compute(): void
+	public function compute(): int
 	{
+		return 42;
 	}
 }

How to ignore this error #

You can use the identifier pureMethod.void to ignore this error using a comment:

// @phpstan-ignore pureMethod.void
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: pureMethod.void

Rules that report this error #

  • PHPStan\Rules\Pure\PureFunctionRule [1]
  • PHPStan\Rules\Pure\PureMethodRule [1]

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