Code completion
Basic code completion helps you complete the names of classes, methods, and keywords within the visibility scope.
PhpStorm analyzes the context and suggests the choices that are reachable from the current caret position. Suggestions also include Live templates. Completion is available for a non-English keyboard layout.
Invoke basic completion
By default, PhpStorm displays the code completion popup automatically as you type.
Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+Space or select from the main menu.
Invoking code completion for the second time shows inaccessible classes and members (these can be made public by applying an intention action).
Accept a suggestion from the list
Press Enter or double-click the relevant list item to insert it to the left of the caret.
Press Tab to replace the characters to the right from the caret.
Use Ctrl+Shift+Enter to make the current code construct syntactically correct (balance parentheses, add missing braces and semicolons, and so on).
Use specific keys and custom characters to accept the selected completion suggestion. To enable these features, go to the Editor | General | Code Completion settings page Ctrl+Alt+S and do the following:
To use specific keys, select the Insert selected suggestion by pressing space, dot, or other context-dependent keys checkbox. These keys depend on the language, your context, and so on.
To also use custom characters, enter the characters into the Additional characters to accept the completion field.
Type-matching completion
Smart type-matching code completion filters the suggestion list and shows only the types applicable to the current context.
Invoke type-matching completion
Start typing. By default, PhpStorm displays the code completion popup automatically as you type. If automatic completion is disabled, press Ctrl+Shift+Space or choose from the main menu.
Press Ctrl+Shift+Space or choose from the main menu.
The most suitable suggestion for the current context is highlighted.
Statement completion
You can create syntactically correct code constructs by using statement completion. It inserts the necessary syntax elements (parentheses, braces, and semicolons) and gets you in a position where you can start typing the next statement.
Complete a method declaration
Start typing a method declaration and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter after the opening parenthesis.
Complete a code construct
Start typing a code construct and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter.
PhpStorm automatically completes the construct and adds the required punctuation. The caret is placed at the next editing position.
Wrap a method call argument
Type an expression. Then type a method call. When
strlengets the focus in the suggestion list, select it with Ctrl+Shift+Enter:
Hippie completion
Hippie completion is a completion engine that analyses your text in the visible scope and generates suggestions from the current context. It helps you complete any word from any of the currently opened files.
Expand a string at caret to an existing word
Type the initial string and do one of the following:
Press Alt+/ or choose to search for matching words before the caret.
Press Alt+Shift+/ or choose to search for matching words after the caret and in other open files.
The first suggested value appears, and the prototype is highlighted in the source code.
Accept the suggestion or hold the Alt key and keep pressing \ until you find the word you need.
Completion of tags and attributes
PhpStorm automatically completes names and values of tags and attributes in many file types:
HTML/XHTML, including completion for CSS classes and for HTML tags inside JSX.
XML/XSL, including completion for namespaces.
JSON. For more information, refer to Editing package.json.
Completion of tags and attribute names is based on the DTD or Schema the file is associated with. If there is no schema association, PhpStorm will use the file content (tag and attribute names and their values) to complete your input.
Complete tag names
Type the opening
<and then start typing the tag name. PhpStorm displays the list of tag names appropriate in the current context.
Use the Up and Down keys to scroll through the list.
Press Enter to accept a selection from the list. If your file is associated with a schema or a DTD, PhpStorm automatically inserts the mandatory attributes according to it.
Machine learning-assisted completion ranking
PhpStorm allows you to prioritize completion suggestions based on choices that other users made in similar situations.
The ML completion mechanism does not add any new elements but orders the elements retrieved from code. Data is not exposed anywhere; it is collected locally.
Enable ML completion ranking
Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and select Editor | General | Code Completion.
Under Machine Learning-Assisted Completion, enable the Sort completion suggestions based on machine learning option and select the languages for which you want to use the ML completion.
Enable relevance markers
Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and select Editor | General | Code Completion.
Enable the following options:
Mark position changes in the completion popup: use the
and 
icons to indicate whether the relevance of a suggestion is increasing or decreasing and therefore the suggestion has moved up or down the suggestion list.Mark the most relevant item in the completion popup: use the
icon to indicate the most suitable suggestion on the list.
The suggestion list will look as follows with the icons marking reordered and the most relevant items.
Configure code completion settings
Configure completion options
Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and then select .
To automatically display the suggestion list, select the Show suggestions as you type checkbox. If the checkbox is cleared, you have to call code completion explicitly by pressing Ctrl+Space for basic completion or Ctrl+Shift+Space for type-matching completion.
You can also choose to automatically insert suggestions when there is just one option: select the completion type under Automatically insert single suggestions for.
To sort suggestions in the alphabetical order, instead of sorting them by relevance, select the Sort suggestions alphabetically checkbox.
You can also toggle these modes by clicking
or 
respectively in the lower-right corner of the suggestion list.If you want the word case to be taken into account when suggesting completion options, select Match case and choose whether you want to match case for first letters only, or for all letters.
If you want the documentation popup to be displayed automatically for each item in the suggestion list as you scroll it, select the Show documentation popup in option. In the field to the right, specify the delay (in milliseconds), after which the popup should appear.
Completing a path
This type of completion speeds up selection of files and folders. The dialog used for that purpose is called rather often, for example, when you specify the installation folder of an external tool or a Version Control engine or configure a PHP interpreter.
Open the Select Path dialog by choosing on the menu or by clicking Browse
next to the field where a path is required.Make sure that the Path field is visible. If the field is hidden, click the Show path link.
Start typing a path. PhpStorm suggests a list where you can quickly find the needed directory.
As you type, the suggestion list shrinks to show the matching paths only.
You can also press Ctrl+Space to show the suggestion list.
Select the relevant suggestion from the list.
Completion tips and tricks
Narrow down the suggestion list
Narrow down the suggestion list by typing any part of a word (even characters from somewhere in the middle) or invoking code completion after a dot separator or
->.PhpStorm displays suggestions containing the characters you've entered, regardless of their position. This makes the use of wildcards unnecessary.
In case of CamelCase or snake_case names, type the initial letters only. PhpStorm automatically recognizes and matches the initial letters.
View reference
You can use the Quick Definition view by pressing Ctrl+Shift+I when you select an entry in the suggestion list:
You can use the Quick Information view by pressing Ctrl+Q when you select an entry in the suggestion list:
View code hierarchy
You can view code hierarchy when you've selected an entry from the suggestion list:
Ctrl+H: view type hierarchy
Ctrl+Alt+H: view call hierarchy.
Ctrl+Shift+H: view method hierarchy.
Troubleshooting
If code completion doesn't work, this may be due to one of the following reasons:
The Power Save Mode is on (). Turning it on minimizes power consumption of your laptop by eliminating the background operations, including error highlighting, on-the-fly inspections, and code completion.
Your file does not reside in a content root , so it does not get the required class definitions and resources needed for code completion.
A file containing classes and functions that you want to appear in the completion suggestion list is marked as a plain text file.
External libraries that contain functions that you want to appear in the completion suggestion list are not added as dependencies or global libraries.
Code completion popup might not appear automatically if it takes too long to gather the completion options. For example, if the computer is busy with another task. In this case, you may still activate the completion popup manually via Ctrl+Space.