PHP/CLI

Although PHP is most commonly used to write web applications, it can also be used for scripts that run from a command line interface (CLI). The CLI environment is a little different than the web environment, and PHP's current documentation doesn't make it easy to locate the relevant pieces.

Arguments

Predefined variables:

• $argc contains the number of arguments passed to the current script
• $argv[] contains an array of all the arguments passed to the script
  • $argv[0] is always the name that was used to run the script.

Note that these variables are only present in the global scope; to use them inside of objects, they will need to be passed in somehow.

Other:

• getopt() parses individual arguments in a standard way
  • Note that this ignores any options listed after non-options.
• cli_get_process_title()
• cli_set_process_title()

See also file/glob for interfacing with the CLI environment's file-globbing services

Interactivity

• GNU Readline manages editable input lines
• fgetc() reads a single character, but waits for a CRLF
  • See the comments for ways to wait for the user to actually just press a single character.
• ncurses: PECL package last updated in 2012
  • 2022-07-31 brief discussion

Links

• Using PHP from the command line