PHP Formatter
Indent and clean up PHP code — basic beautifier
PHP Input
Formatted
PHP Formatter — Complete Guide & Instructions
MakeCard PHP Formatter is a lightweight beautifier that re-indents PHP code with consistent 4-space formatting. Paste minified, pasted-from-chat, or sloppily written PHP and the tool walks it character by character — respecting string literals, line comments, and block comments — then emits cleanly indented output where every statement and brace level sits on its own line. It is a quick tidy-up step before committing, reviewing, or sharing code.
How to Use PHP Formatter
- 1 Paste your PHP code into the “PHP Input” box (or press “Sample” to try the demo).
- 2 Click “Format PHP”.
- 3 Review the re-indented output in the “Formatted” panel.
- 4 Press “Copy” to take the cleaned-up code into your editor.
Key Features & Capabilities
- Consistent 4-space indentation driven by brace depth.
- String-aware scanning — braces inside quotes never break indentation.
- Handles // , # and /* */ comments without mangling their contents.
- Collapses runs of blank lines for a tidy result.
- One-click sample input and copy-to-clipboard output.
- Runs entirely in the browser — your code is not sent to any server.
Supported Formats & Specifications
| Parameter | Specification |
|---|---|
| Input | Raw PHP source (with or without <?php tags) |
| Indent Style | 4 spaces per brace level, one statement per line |
| Comment Support | // single-line, # shell-style, and /* */ block comments |
| Output | Plain formatted text, clipboard-ready |
| Processing | 100% client-side |
Practical Everyday Use Cases
- Re-indenting PHP pasted from chatbots or forums before pasting into a project.
- Quickly tidying a one-liner function into readable multi-line code.
- Normalizing brace indentation when merging snippets from different sources.
- Making legacy PHP files more readable during review.
- Cleaning generated PHP before committing it.
Pro Tips for Best Results
- This is a basic formatter — for full PSR-12 compliance use a dedicated linter like PHP-CS-Fixer locally.
- The formatter treats each ; as a statement end, so very unusual one-line constructs may reflow differently than expected.
- Always re-run the formatted code before deploying — beautifiers change layout, not logic, but a quick syntax check is cheap insurance.
- Keep the original somewhere until you have verified the output runs.
Common Problems & Solutions
Unbalanced braces in the source confuse depth tracking — fix missing { or } first, then format again.
Multiline heredoc strings can lose their internal spacing — this basic formatter is line-oriented; tidy those blocks by hand.
The input was blank or only whitespace — paste actual PHP code and press Format PHP.
Privacy & Security
100% Client-Side Execution
Your code is processed locally in the browser and never leaves the page — nothing is uploaded or logged.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about using PHP Formatter
It applies consistent 4-space indentation and statement-per-line layout — a light beautifier, not a full PSR-12 fixer. For strict standards, run PHP-CS-Fixer or PHP_CodeSniffer.
No — it only adjusts whitespace and line breaks. The logic, strings and comments are preserved.
It formats whatever is pasted as PHP-style code. Heavy HTML/PHP mixtures may produce imperfect results since the engine keys on braces and semicolons.
No — the formatter runs entirely in your browser. Source code never leaves your device.
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100% free, browser-based, and private. No installation, registration, or file upload to external servers required.
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