php 8.5 ReflectionType->getName no longer returns "self"

[bkdotcom]

Description

The following code:

https://3v4l.org/5ACeW#v8.5.3

<?php

class Bar
{
}

class Foo extends Bar
{
    function getSelf (self $a): self
    {        
    }
    
    function getStatic (): static
    {   
    }
}

$refMethodSelf = new ReflectionMethod('Foo', 'getSelf');
$refMethodStatic = new ReflectionMethod('Foo', 'getStatic');
$refParam = $refMethodSelf->getParameters()[0];

print_r(array(
    'paramType' => $refParam->getType()->getName(),
    'returnTypeSelf' => $refMethodSelf->getReturnType()->getName(),
    'returnTypeStatic' => $refMethodStatic->getReturnType()->getName(),
));

Resulted in this output:

Array
(
    [paramType] => Foo
    [returnTypeSelf] => Foo
    [returnTypeStatic] => static
)

But I expected this output instead:

Array
(
    [paramType] => self
    [returnTypeSelf] => self
    [returnTypeStatic] => static
)

PHP Version

PHP 8.5.3 (cli) (built: Feb 10 2026 18:25:51) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Built by Shivam Mathur
Zend Engine v4.5.3, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.5.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Operating System

MacOS 15.7.4

[erdemkose]

I found a similar discussion: #18373

[iluuu1994]

See GH-17755, this is intentional. self unambiguously refers to Foo, so it's substituted at compile-time. GH-18373 was unique in that the substituted class name is mangled when referring to an anonymous class, i.e. not something the user would usually encounter directly (without ClassReflection::getName()) at least.

[bkdotcom]

self unambiguously refers to Foo

and it is trivial to resolve "self" to Foo progmatically

however....

class Bar
{
    public function getObj1(): Bar
    {
    }

    public function getObj2(): self
    {
    }

    public function getObj3(): static
    {
    }
}

getReturnType()->getName() now returns "Bar" for getObj1 and getObj2. can no longer use reflection to see that getObj2's return was defined as "self" vs explicit FQCN

getObj3 - we still obviously get 'static'

[iluuu1994]

The primary motivation here was internal consistency, i.e. we want to also avoid an internal lookup of self at runtime, and self and Foo should be equivalent for things like LSP checks. What's your use-case where you'd need to differentiate between these two cases?

[Girgias]

Just to let you know, if you need to determine things "statically" in regard to how it was written in the file, the BetterReflection library might help you achieve this.