Zend_Server_Reflection provides a standard mechanism for performing function and class introspection for use with server classes. It is based on PHP 5's Reflection API, and extends it to provide methods for retrieving parameter and return value types and descriptions, a full list of function and method prototypes (i.e., all possible valid calling combinations), and function/method descriptions.

Typically, this functionality will only be used by developers of server classes for the framework.

Basic usage is simple:

<?php
require_once 'Zend/Server/Reflection.php';
$class    = Zend_Server_Reflection::reflectClass('My_Class');
$function = Zend_Server_Reflection::reflectFunction('my_function');

// Get prototypes
$prototypes = $reflection->getPrototypes();

// Loop through each prototype for the function
foreach ($prototypes as $prototype) {

    // Get prototype return type
    echo "Return type: ", $prototype->getReturnType(), "\n";
    
    // Get prototype parameters
    $parameters = $prototype->getParameters();

    echo "Parameters: \n";
    foreach ($parameters as $parameter) {
        // Get parameter type
        echo "    ", $parameter->getType(), "\n";
    }
}

// Get namespace for a class, function, or method.
// Namespaces may be set at instantiation time (second argument), or using
// setNamespace()
$reflection->getNamespace();

reflectFunction() returns a Zend_Server_Reflection_Function object; reflectClass returns a Zend_Server_Reflection_Class object. Please refer to the API documentation to know what methods are available to each.