Languages

Choose literal selectors for any text source or structural selectors for the languages Code Slicer understands. Every selection preserves original bytes, source identity, and line numbers.

CodeSource::fromFile() identifies a language from the filename. For an in-memory source, pass the language explicitly, such as CodeSource::fromString($code, 'css'). A missing language still permits line and literal-text selection.

Text and lines

Text covers line ranges and literal line boundaries for HTML, SVG, YAML, Markdown, environment files, and unknown source types.

HTML, SVG, YAML, Markdown, environment files, and unknown source types remain ordinary text. Select an inclusive range of original lines with lines(), or chain after() and before() around known literal boundaries. These selectors do not balance nested tags, infer YAML indentation, or understand Markdown sections.

<?php

use Alto\Code\Slicer\CodeSource;

$source = CodeSource::fromString("Customer: Ada\nTotal: 42 EUR\nStatus: paid");
echo $source->slice()
    ->after('Total: ')
    ->before(' EUR')
    ->content();

Both delimiters are excluded. Each call searches for the first case-sensitive match inside the current slice and returns a new narrower slice. The original source and earlier slices remain unchanged. The output is 42, from original source line 2.

A missing literal raises SourceTextNotFound. Check spelling, whitespace, line endings, and earlier selections before retrying. Empty search text raises InvalidArgumentException. Invalid or expanding line ranges raise InvalidSourceRange.

Structural selectors

Use a structural selector when an excerpt should follow a named declaration. It includes the matching closing boundary and preserves indentation.

Start with the complete source, then narrow to a containing class, rule, at-rule, or block when a name is repeated.

Selection behavior

Structural selectors return the first matching declaration fully contained in the current slice. A missing symbol raises SourceSymbolNotFound; an unknown or unsupported structural language raises UnsupportedSourceLanguage. Code Slicer does not silently return the whole source.

These selectors locate supported source structures. They are not compilers, formatters, or type checkers, and malformed input may not expose the expected declaration. Read Selectors for shared range, chaining, and failure rules.