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What is PHP’s Reflection API and when should it be used?

Senior PHP
Quick Answer Reflection API inspects classes, methods, properties, and parameters at runtime. Use ReflectionClass to get class metadata, list methods, read annotations/attributes. Useful in DI containers (auto-resolve constructor params), testing frameworks (access private members), ORM mappers, and plugin systems. Powerful but slow - cache reflection results in production. Avoid in hot paths.

Answer

Reflection inspects classes, methods, and parameters. Useful for dependency injection containers and ORMs.
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