j!dump: How do I track where a class is defined?

Question

I am a beginner with PHP and Joomla Core development. This great extension helps me a lot during my learning. A very frequent situation when I try to understand some code is, there is a method of a class being invoked in a line and I want to look into the definition of the class but have no idea where it is. Before j!dump, I had to download the extension in question and in-text search the class, which takes a lot of time. I believe this simple goal can be achieved by using j!dump, but I don't know how. It is like follows:

$messages = modPimediaplayerHelper::getStudy($params);

This line is found in a module's PHP file, I'd like to know where this modPimediaplayerHelper is defined, I tried dump(modPimediaplayerHelper) and dump(modPimediaplayerHelper::getStudy), both of them don't work, so what should I do?

By the way, when I try to dump($params), it returns a object without meaningful properties but only methods, which provokes me to look into how this $params object is defined also, how do I use J!dump to track it?

Answer 1

You cannot find out where the class is defined using JDump

You can find out if from inside a running method using dumpTrace();, but not outside of a class.

To get what you need try this; https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2420066/finding-the-php-file-at-run-time-where-a-class-was-defined

BTW, have you visited Joomla JDump backend? /administrator/index.php?option=com_dump There is a couple of JDump options there maybe useful in other cases.

Answer 2

As you're referring to a module which is (in my own opinion), the most simple type of extension, I'll answer this for a module only.

Most modules have a helper.php file which contains function that retrieve data to be displayed in the module output, so basically, everything that happens behind the scenes.

This is where your class modPimediaplayerHelper will be defined.

So you simply need to look in the following directory:

ROOT/modules/mod_pmedia_player_helper/helper.php

Note: I used mod_pmedia_player_helper in the path as a guess. It may be slightly different but definitely something along these lines.

Hope this helps