How do versions for provideMinPhpVersion get decided?

[indykoning]

Somewhat similar to: #8823 (comment)

Me wanting to prepare my 8.3 project for 8.4 i wanted to run the rules like: ExplicitNullableParamTypeRector
However it will not run this since my minimal version is still 8.3.
Raising the minimal version to 8.4 temporarily risks updating code to backwards incompatible changes so i would prefer not to do that.

From what i can see Explicit nullable params are supported ever since php 7.1
https://www.php.net/manual/en/migration71.new-features.php

But it is deprecated to do implicit nullable params since 8.4.

My question is, in cases like these. Shouldn't the minimal php version for this be 7.1, but it be added to the PHPset of 8.4?
How does this work, and how do those versions get decided?

[samsonasik]

You can do:

    ->withPhpSets(php83: true)
    ->withPhpVersion(PhpVersion::PHP_84)
    ->withRules([
        ExplicitNullableParamTypeRector::class,    
    ]);

do with your own risk :)

https://getrector.com/demo/c8616d28-1626-45cd-98b6-e524a4de3d82

[indykoning]

Ah i see an issue for it had been opened as well, and this change does indeed work!
#8761

Though i do share the sentiment of the issue author here:

Debugging the code I found that provideMinPhpVersion() of this rector rule returns 80400 and since my php runtime version is 8.3.8 it didnt enable this rule.

I suspect provideMinPhpVersion() is meant to provide the minimum php version the refactored code of this rule will run. This should not be 8.4, but 8.0 I think?

This rule will run and cause no issues for older PHP versions, so perhaps we want to update the provideMinPhpVersion for tasks like these. What are your thoughts on that?
If you agree, i have no problem figuring out the php versions where these features are introduced and updating the versions to that in a PR 🙂

[samsonasik]

No, on php < 8.4 apply, it may cause issue on required after optional, see whole discussion at

#8823 (comment)

[indykoning]

Ah, so since this change could be breaking (if your variable ordering is incorrect) the rule is pushed to the version which deprecates it since either way around you'd get errors if your variable ordering is incorrect.
Thanks for the insight!