Interactive shell
Interactive shell
Interactive shell
As of PHP 5.1.0, the CLI SAPI provides
an interactive shell using the -a option if PHP is compiled with the
–with-readline option.
As of PHP 7.1.0 the interactive shell is also available on Windows,
if the readline
extension is enabled.
Using the interactive shell you are able to type
PHP code and have it executed directly.
Example #1 Executing code using the interactive
shell
$ php -a
Interactive shell
php > echo 5+8;
13
php > function addTwo($n)
php > {
php { return $n + 2;
php { }
php > var_dump(addtwo(2));
int(4)
php >
The interactive shell also features tab completion
for functions, constants, class names, variables, static method
calls and class constants.
Example #2 Tab completion
Pressing the tab key twice when there are multiple possible
completions will result in a list of these completions:
php > strp[TAB][TAB] strpbrk strpos strptime php > strp
When there is only one possible completion, pressing tab once
will complete the rest on the same line:
php > strpt[TAB]ime(
Completion will also work for names that have been defined
during the current interactive shell session:
php > $fooThisIsAReallyLongVariableName = 42; php > $foo[TAB]ThisIsAReallyLongVariableName
The interactive shell stores your history which can
be accessed using the up and down keys. The history is saved in the
~/.php_history file.
As of PHP 5.4.0, the CLI SAPI provides
the php.ini settings cli.pager and cli.prompt. The cli.pager setting allows an external program
(such as less) to act as a pager for
the output instead of being displayed directly on the screen. The
cli.prompt setting makes it possible
to change the php > prompt.
In PHP 5.4.0 it was also made possible to set
php.ini settings in the interactive
shell using a shorthand notation.
Example #3 Setting php.ini
settings in the interactive shell
The cli.prompt setting:
php > #cli.prompt=hello world :> hello world :>
Using backticks it is possible to have PHP code executed in the
prompt:
php > #cli.prompt=`echo date('H:i:s');` php >
15:49:35 php > echo 'hi';
hi
15:49:43 php > sleep(2);
15:49:45 php >
Setting the pager to less:
php > #cli.pager=less php > phpinfo(); (output displayed in less) php >
The cli.prompt
setting supports a few escape sequences:
| Sequence | Description |
|---|---|
| \e | Used for adding colors to the prompt. An example could be \e[032m\v \e[031m\b \e[34m\> \e[0m |
| \v | The PHP version. |
| \b | Indicates which block PHP is in. For instance /* to indicate being inside a multi-line comment. The outer scope is denoted by php. |
| \> | Indicates the prompt character. By default this is >, but changes when the shell is inside an unterminated block or string. Possible characters are: ‘ ” { ( > |
Note:
Files included through auto_prepend_file and auto_append_file are parsed in this mode but with some
restrictions – e.g. functions have to be defined before called.
Note:
Autoloading is not available if using PHP in
CLI
interactive mode.