Netbeans PHPDoc local variable not working

I am trying to document my code more often and now I’m writing a class and want it to be fully documented. However, for some strange reason, local variable documentation (with PHPDoc of course) doesn’t work..

I got this:

/**
 * A function for question
 * @param string $theVar The var to put in local var $aVar.
 */
public function theFunction($theVar) {
    /** @var string This is new local var, should have documentation but hasn't... */
    $aVar = $theVar;
}

So when I type ‘the’ and press space, and go to my function in Netbeans, it shows the function documentation.

But, when I type ‘aVa’ inside the function and press space and go to my variable, it says ‘PHPDoc not found’.

I know in this case it wouldn’t be a problem, but in a big function with lots of code it could actually be useful. However, for some reason it doesn’t work and I have no clue why.

Answer

I don’t think you can document internal variables like that. You can document class variable declarations and function parameters but the documentation doesn’t say anything about a local function variable

You may use the @var tag to document the “Type” of properties, sometimes called class variables. Examples

class Foo
{
  /** @var string|null Should contain a description */
  protected $description = null;
}

Even compound statements may be documented:

class Foo
{
  /**
   * @var string $name        Should contain a description
   * @var string $description Should contain a description
   */
  protected $name, $description;
}