The ReflectionDocBlock Component [](https://travis-ci.org/phpDocumentor/ReflectionDocBlock)
================================
Introduction
------------
The ReflectionDocBlock component of phpDocumentor provides a DocBlock parser
that is 100% compatible with the [PHPDoc standard](http://phpdoc.org/docs/latest).
With this component, a library can provide support for annotations via DocBlocks
or otherwise retrieve information that is embedded in a DocBlock.
> **Note**: *this is a core component of phpDocumentor and is constantly being
> optimized for performance.*
Installation
------------
You can install the component in the following ways:
* Use the official Github repository (https://github.com/phpDocumentor/ReflectionDocBlock)
* Via Composer (http://packagist.org/packages/phpdocumentor/reflection-docblock)
Usage
-----
In order to parse the DocBlock one needs a DocBlockFactory that can be
instantiated using its `createInstance` factory method like this:
```php
$factory = \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlockFactory::createInstance();
```
Then we can use the `create` method of the factory to interpret the DocBlock.
Please note that it is also possible to provide a class that has the
`getDocComment()` method, such as an object of type `ReflectionClass`, the
create method will read that if it exists.
```php
$docComment = <<create($docComment);
```
The `create` method will yield an object of type `\phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock`
whose methods can be queried as shown in the following example.
```php
// Should contain the summary for this DocBlock
$summary = $docblock->getSummary();
// Contains an object of type \phpDocumentor\Reflection\DocBlock\Description;
// you can either cast it to string or use the render method to get a string
// representation of the Description.
$description = $docblock->getDescription();
```
> For more examples it would be best to review the scripts in the `/examples`
> folder.