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Reflection & Migration

Reflection​

You can reflect on the module of a class or function using its corresponding methods.

ReflectionClass::getModule();
ReflectionFunctionAbstract::getModule();

You can check if a class, method or property is internal with the isInternalToModule() function.

ReflectionClass::isInternalToModule();
ReflectionFunctionAbstract::isInternalToModule();

Migration and <<__SoftInternal>>​

When migrating existing code to use internal, you can use the <<__SoftInternal>> attribute to help detect dynamic usages of the code outside of the module. Internal symbols with <<__SoftInternal>> will raise a warning in HHVM instead of an exception.

//// newmodule.hack
new module foo {}

//// foo.hack
module foo;
class Cls {
  <<__SoftInternal>>
  internal function foo_soft(): void {
    echo "Hello from foo_soft\n";
  }
}

Calling Cls::foo_soft() from outside the code:

module bar;
<<__EntryPoint>>
function test(): void {
    Cls::foo_soft();
}

will result in the following output from HHVM:

Warning: Accessing soft internal method Cls::foo_soft in module foo from module bar is not allowed in test.php on line 4
Hello from foo_soft