title: Lexer and parser command reference outline: deep

Command reference

The mago ast command is a powerful inspection tool that tokenizes and parses a single PHP file, giving you insight into its lexical and syntactical structure.

:::tip For global options that can be used with any command, see the Command-Line Interface overview. Remember to specify global options before the ast command. :::

Usage: mago ast [OPTIONS] <FILE>

Arguments

<FILE>

Required. The path to the single PHP file you want to inspect.

Options

--tokens

Display the stream of raw tokens generated by the lexer instead of the parsed AST. This is useful for debugging low-level syntax issues. This can be combined with --json for machine-readable output.

--json

Display the output (either the AST or the token stream) in a machine-readable, pretty-printed JSON format. This is ideal for integration with other tools and scripts.

--names

After parsing the AST, this flag runs the name resolver and prints a list of all symbols (classes, functions, etc.) and their fully qualified names. This is useful for debugging namespace and import resolution.

Shared Reporting Options

The ast command uses a shared set of options for reporting parsing errors.

See the Shared Reporting and Fixing Options documentation.

:::tip The ast command only reports parsing errors. Auto-fixing and baseline features are not applicable to this command. :::

Help