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PHP Tutorials and Videos
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PHP Basics

It's 2018, and you're a top-notch modern web developer, with a load of knowledge and tools right there at your disposal: Google and StackOverflow, debugger with a GUI, IDE with autocomplete, you name it. Occasionally, though, you still find yourself in a plain old text console on a remote server, or you have to do something without IDE, or there is no network connection... In such cases it might be helpful to feel comfortable in a simple terminal. In this post I'm going to list some switches for the PHP command that you can use to get information and some utilities.

Getting basic information about PHP


$ php -i
phpinfo()
PHP Version => 7.2.10-0ubuntu1

System => Linux awesome 4.18.0-10-generic #11-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 11 15:13:55 UTC 2018 x86_64
Build Date => Sep 13 2018 13:38:55
Server API => Command Line Interface
Virtual Directory Support => disabled
...


Full information about your PHP interpreter. Pipe the output to the Unix less command in order to get pagination and search: php -i | less. Type Q to exit the less shell. Some distros might lack less, in that case you may try php -i | more, which doesn't give you search but still has pagination.

Want a short summary of which PHP extensions you have? Just ask:

$ php -m
[PHP Modules]
calendar
Core
ctype
date
dom
ds
exif
...


More specific info about core and extensions' functions and classes


Full information about functions and classes provided by an extension:

$ php --re ds
Extension [ <persistent> extension #46 ds version 1.2.6 ] {

- Dependencies {
Dependency [ json (Required) ]
Dependency [ spl (Required) ]
}

- Classes [11] {
Interface [ <internal:ds> interface Ds\Hashable ] {

- Constants [0] {
}

- Static properties [0] {
}
...


Information on a specific class:

$ php --rc Ds\Vector
Class [ <internal:ds> <iterateable> final class Ds\Vector implements Ds\Sequence, Traversable, Countable, JsonSerializable, Ds\Collection ] {

- Constants [1] {
Constant [ public integer MIN_CAPACITY ] { 8 }
}

- Static properties [0] {
}
...


Same for a function:

$ php --rf fopen
Function [ <internal:standard> function fopen ] {

- Parameters [4] {
Parameter #0 [ <required> $filename ]
Parameter #1 [ <required> $mode ]
Parameter #2 [ <optional> $use_include_path ]
Parameter #3 [ <optional> $context ]
}
}


Utilities


Ever found yourself creating a dummy PHP file of just a few lines - only to be run once and then deleted? The -a switch might be what you're looking for:

$ php -a
Interactive mode enabled

php > var_dump(join(", ", [1, 2, 3]));
php shell code:1:
string(7) "1, 2, 3"
php >


It starts an interactive shell so you can type any PHP code and execute it straight away. Requires PHP to be compiled with readline support (most distros have that anyway).

Want a quick check for any parse/syntax errors in a PHP file? Use linter:

$ php -l test.php 
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected 'array_shift' (T_STRING) in test.php on line 4
Errors parsing test.php


It has a web-server!


Yes! Just in case you missed it, as of PHP 5.4.0, the CLI SAPI provides a built-in web server. Want a quick look at a web page generated by an app? Here you go:

$ cd /my_application/document_root
$ php -S localhost:8000


Then open http://localhost:8000/ in your browser of choice and enjoy!

Hope you also have enjoyed this reading. Your feedback and questions are always appreciated!

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