The PHP command line interface or CLI allows you to run PHP scripts from the command line. It also has a number of flags that can be passed to it which allow you to see which modules are available, do a syntax check on a file, view PHP information etc. This post gives a basic list of the command line arguments available for the PHP CLI and in later posts I will look at some of the options in more detail.
To show all the options that are available, do this:
php --help
This will return a list of all the options available that can be passed to the PHP CLI. The following output comes from a default PHP install on a CentOS 5.0 machine:
Usage: php [options] [-f] <file> [--] [args...]
php [options] -r <code> [--] [args...]
php [options] [-B <begin_code>] -R <code> [-E <end_code>] [--] [args...]
php [options] [-B <begin_code>] -F <file> [-E <end_code>] [--] [args...]
php [options] -- [args...]
php [options] -a
-a Run interactively
-c <path>|<file> Look for php.ini file in this directory
-n No php.ini file will be used
-d foo[=bar] Define INI entry foo with value 'bar'
-e Generate extended information for debugger/profiler
-f <file> Parse <file>.
-h This help
-i PHP information
-l Syntax check only (lint)
-m Show compiled in modules
-r <code> Run PHP <code> without using script tags <?..?>
-B <begin_code> Run PHP <begin_code> before processing input lines
-R <code> Run PHP <code> for every input line
-F <file> Parse and execute <file> for every input line
-E <end_code> Run PHP <end_code> after processing all input lines
-H Hide any passed arguments from external tools.
-s Display colour syntax highlighted source.
-v Version number
-w Display source with stripped comments and whitespace.
-z <file> Load Zend extension <file>.
args... Arguments passed to script. Use -- args when first argument
starts with - or script is read from stdin
--rf <name> Show information about function <name>.
--rc <name> Show information about class <name>.
--re <name> Show information about extension <name>.
To run a PHP script you would simply call “php” followed by the script name, e.g.:
php myscript.php
To get the PHP version you would do this:
php -v
which will output something along the lines of this:
PHP 5.1.6 (cli) (built: Sep 20 2007 10:16:10) Copyright (c) 1997-2006 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Zend Technologies
That’s all for this post. In future posts I will examine some of the other flags in more detail.
