Search and replace - spaces before and after control structures

1-minute read

Again struggling to bring my code up to PSR2 coding standards I’ve run into another little typing glitch PHP Code Sniffer Fixer will not fix: there should be one white spaces before and after control structures.
So this code

if($a === $b) {
    bar();
}elseif($a > $b) {
    $foo->bar($arg1);
}else{
    BazClass::bar($arg2, $arg3);

should be

if ($a === $b) {
    bar();
} elseif ($a > $b) {
    $foo->bar($arg1);
} else {
    BazClass::bar($arg2, $arg3);

I’m looking for this string

[^\S\n]*(if|else|elseif|else if|while|do-while|for|foreach|switch|declare|return|include|require|require_once|include_once)[^\S\n]*

and will replace with

$1

Double negation

I came across this tip on stackoverflow and it really shines in picking up spaces but not newlines chars:

[^\S\n]
That is, not-not-whitespace or not-newline. Distributing the outer not (i.e., the complementing ^ in the character class) with De Morgan's law, this is equivalent to “whitespace and not newline,”

And tabs? Those should not be there according to PSR2 standards, 4 spaces should be used instead.