PHP: method calls through a class property ($this->dep->method()) never resolve — constructor-injected dependencies produce no call edges #1220

Summary

In PHP, a method call whose receiver is a class property — $this->greeter->greet() — never produces a calls edge, regardless of whether the property is typed with a concrete class or an interface, and regardless of declaration style (PHP 8 constructor property promotion or a classic typed property assigned in the constructor).

Receiver-type inference added in #1108 (locals) and #1125 (parameters) covers the other shapes: on 1.3.0, local-variable receivers ($g = new Greeter(); $g->greet()) and typed-parameter receivers (function run(Greeter $g) { $g->greet(); }) both resolve correctly. Class-property receivers are the missing case — and in dependency-injection codebases (Symfony, Laravel constructor injection) they are the dominant call shape: nearly every cross-class call goes through a constructor-injected property.

Evidence

Minimal repro — 4 call sites of Greeter::greet(), identical except for how the receiver is obtained:

// src/Greeter.php
class Greeter {
    public function greet(string $n): string { return "hi $n"; }
}

// src/UserViaNew.php — local variable
class UserViaNew {
    public function run(): string { $g = new Greeter(); return $g->greet('new'); }
}

// src/UserViaParam.php — typed parameter
class UserViaParam {
    public function run(Greeter $greeter): string { return $greeter->greet('param'); }
}

// src/UserViaDi.php — promoted constructor property
class UserViaDi {
    public function __construct(private readonly Greeter $greeter) {}
    public function run(): string { return $this->greeter->greet('di'); }
}

// src/UserViaClassicProp.php — classic typed property
class UserViaClassicProp {
    private Greeter $greeter;
    public function __construct(Greeter $greeter) { $this->greeter = $greeter; }
    public function run(): string { return $this->greeter->greet('classic'); }
}

codegraph init && codegraph callers greet (v1.3.0, also reproduced on 1.2.0):

Callers of "greet" (2):

method      run
  src/UserViaNew.php:3

method      run
  src/UserViaParam.php:3

Same-class calls ($this->method()) and static calls resolve fine; this is specifically the property-receiver hop.

Why it matters

Measured on six real PHP codebases (340 → 9 200 files, PHP 7.1 → 8.5, Symfony 3.2 → 8.0): in DI-style code every cross-class production call goes through constructor-injected properties, so codegraph_callers returned 0 of 13 verified production call sites across the methods we first sampled, while happily returning the unit-test call sites (local new receivers). The result is worse than an empty answer: a method with production callers looks test-only/dead, and codegraph_impact reports only same-name declarations, so blast-radius on a signature change misses every real consumer. (Happy to share the detailed measurement protocol.)

I have a working fix (PR incoming) that follows the existing receiver-type-inference architecture; validated on those six codebases it takes a sampled repository method from 0/7 to 7/7 production callers with 49/49 manually verified call edges and no false positives — details in the PR.

Root cause (from reading main)

1. Extraction (src/extraction/tree-sitter.ts, extractCall): for member_call_expression the receiver becomes the node's raw text with only the leading $ stripped, so $this->greeter->greet() is recorded as the reference this->greeter.greet. Java has a dedicated unwrap for exactly this shape — field_access with a this object unwraps to the bare field name, with the comment "so the resolver can then look up in the enclosing class's field declarations" — but the condition only matches Java's field_access; PHP's member_access_expression never takes that path.
2. Resolution (src/resolution/): nothing splits ->, and nothing consults class property declarations for PHP — so this->greeter is an unmatchable receiver string and the reference is dropped.

The type information is statically available: promoted properties carry it in the constructor signature, classic typed properties (PHP 7.4+) in the declaration, and the PHP extractor already collects property_declaration nodes (fieldTypes in src/extraction/languages/php.ts) — it's just not used for receiver typing.

Relationship to existing work

• Local-variable receiver-type inference is C++-only — instance method calls through a local don't resolve in other languages #1108 (locals) and TypeScript/JavaScript: local-variable receiver-type inference doesn't cover typed function parameters (unlike Java/C#/Kotlin/Swift/Scala) #1125 (parameters) fixed the sibling shapes; this is the third leg.
• CFML got exactly this in 1.3.0 (component properties, pseudoconstructor pattern — per the changelog "the same receiver-type inference the other object-oriented languages already had").
• PR feat(resolution): resolve this.<field>.method() on the field's declared type (TS/JS) #920 (open) implements this.<field>.method() resolution on the field's declared type for TS/JS — this issue is the PHP counterpart.

Environment: CodeGraph 1.2.0 and 1.3.0 (npm), macOS arm64, PHP grammar as bundled.