What are the best practices for documenting PHP code, especially when developing a forum application?

When documenting PHP code for a forum application, it is important to use clear and descriptive comments to explain the purpose of functions, classes, and methods. Additionally, documenting input parameters, return values, and any potential side effects can help other developers understand and maintain the code more easily. 

/**
 * Function to retrieve all posts from a specific forum thread
 *
 * @param int $thread_id The ID of the forum thread
 * @return array An array of post objects
 */
function getPostsByThread($thread_id) {
    // Query to retrieve posts from the database
    $query = "SELECT * FROM posts WHERE thread_id = $thread_id";
    
    // Execute the query and fetch the results
    $result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
    
    // Loop through the results and create post objects
    $posts = array();
    while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
        $post = new Post($row['id'], $row['content']);
        $posts[] = $post;
    }
    
    return $posts;
}

Keywords

PHP documentation forum application code comments PHPDoc

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