False positive for "Local variables should not be declared and then immediately returned or thrown (php:S1488)"?

[OlafEichstaedt (Olaf Eichstädt)]

VSCode 1.55.0 (Windows)
Sonarlint 1.21.0

“Local variables should not be declared and then immediately returned or thrown (php:S1488)”

Is not only triggered for

[...]
$local_variable ='value';
return $local_variable;

where it makes a lot of sense but also for

$local_variable = '';
$local_variable .= 'append something';
[...]
$local_variable .= 'append the last thing';
return $local_variable;

where it would be difficult to include the value of the local variable in the return statement.

Bug or feature?

[Karim_El_Ouerghemmi]

Hello @OlafEichstaedt, and welcome to the community!

@OlafEichstaedt

Bug or feature?

Good question, indeed.

I’ll discuss that with the team and get back to you in the next couple of days.

Karim.

[Karim_El_Ouerghemmi]

Hey @OlafEichstaedt,

Finally, we have decided this is not how we want the rule to behave. Thus, it is considered as a bug.

I’ve created a ticket to track this.

Thank you very much for noticing and reporting!

Karim.

[OlafEichstaedt (Olaf Eichstädt)]

My pleasure, I enjoy working with your poducts.

Thanks for the feedback.

[OlafEichstaedt (Olaf Eichstädt)]

Please note, the rule also triggers a false positive in the following case:

$html = "something [...]";
$html = str_replace( 'something', 'something else', $html );
return $html;

[Karim_El_Ouerghemmi]

Hey @OlafEichstaedt,

Good catch. I’ve adapted the created ticket to take into account the cases in which the assigned value depends on the variable itself.

Thanks again!

Karim.