Cleaner Code with Grouped use Statements in PHP

When working with PHP—especially in large Laravel or Symfony projects—you may find yourself importing multiple classes from the same namespace. Over time, this can lead to visual clutter at the top of your files. Fortunately, PHP 7.0 introduced grouped use declarations, which offer a cleaner, more readable, and maintainable way to import related classes.

Let’s break it down.

🧱 The Problem: Repetitive Imports

Consider this common scenario:

use App\Models\User;
use App\Models\Team;
use App\Models\Project;
use App\Models\Task;

While perfectly valid, this format repeats the same namespace—App\Models—for every line. As your file grows, this list can become long, redundant, and harder to maintain.

✅ The Solution: Grouped Use Statements

With grouped use declarations, the above code becomes:

use App\Models\{User, Team, Project, Task};

💡 What’s happening?

• PHP allows you to import multiple classes, functions, or constants from the same namespace using a single use statement.
• The common part of the namespace is written once, followed by a comma-separated list inside curly braces {}.

🧠 Why You Should Use It

1. Improved Readability

Grouped imports are easier to scan, especially when the namespace is long or deeply nested.

2. Reduces Duplication

You write the namespace once, which helps reduce boilerplate and cognitive load.

3. Smaller Git Diffs

Adding or removing an import from a grouped list typically affects only one line, minimizing merge conflicts and diff noise.

4. Cleaner Code Style

Many developers and teams prefer this style for consistency and aesthetics, especially when working in modern frameworks.

⚠️ Things to Watch Out For

❌ Only Same Namespace

Grouped imports only work if all classes share the exact same namespace. The following will cause an error:

// ❌ This is invalid
use App\Models\{User, Team};
use App\Services\{EmailService, NotificationService};

Each group must come from the same root path.

🧪 Can I Group Functions and Constants?

Yes! PHP 7.0+ also supports grouping functions and constants:

use function App\Helpers\{array_flatten, string_starts_with};
use const App\Config\{DEFAULT_TIMEZONE, APP_NAME};

But note:

• You must prefix with function or const when grouping anything other than classes.
• These are less commonly used, but useful in utility-heavy codebases.

🛠 Best Practices

Here are some guidelines when using grouped imports:

📌 IDE and Tooling Support

Modern IDEs like PhpStorm, VSCode with PHP extensions, and tools like PHP CS Fixer support grouped imports natively.

For example, PhpStorm can:

• Automatically group imports for you
• Sort them alphabetically
• Suggest grouped imports during auto-import

You can also enable grouped imports in PHP CS Fixer with:

php-cs-fixer fix . --rules='{"ordered_imports": {"sort_algorithm": "alpha"}, "group_imports": true}'

💬 Finally

Using grouped use statements in PHP is a small but powerful improvement that leads to cleaner, more readable, and easier-to-maintain code—especially in large-scale applications like Laravel, Symfony, or custom enterprise projects.

Remember:

• Use grouped imports when working with multiple classes from the same namespace.
• Keep them clean, consistent, and meaningful.
• Configure your IDE or code formatter to apply it automatically.

🔁 Before and After Recap

❌ Before

use App\Models\User;
use App\Models\Team;
use App\Models\Project;

✅ After

use App\Models\{User, Team, Project};

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