How to get the home directory from a PHP CLI script?

Question

From the command line, I can get the home directory like this:

~/ 

How can I get the home directory inside my PHP CLI script?

#!/usr/bin/php <?php echo realpath(~/); ?> 

Answer 1

You can fetch the value of $HOME from the environment:

<?php     $home = getenv("HOME"); ?> 

Answer 2

Use $_SERVER['HOME']

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Edit:

To make it complete, see what print_r($_SERVER)gave me, executed from the command line:

Array (     [TERM_PROGRAM] => Apple_Terminal     [TERM] => xterm-color     [SHELL] => /bin/bash     [TMPDIR] => /var/folders/Lb/LbowO2ALEX4JTK2MXxLGd++++TI/-Tmp-/     [TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION] => 272     [USER] => felix     [COMMAND_MODE] => unix2003     [__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING] => 0x1F5:0:0     [PATH] =>/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/texbin:/usr/X11/bin     [PWD] => /Users/felix/Desktop     [LANG] => de_DE.UTF-8     [SHLVL] => 1     [HOME] => /Users/felix     [LOGNAME] => felix     [DISPLAY] => /tmp/launch-XIM6c8/:0     [_] => ./test_php2     [OLDPWD] => /Users/felix     [PHP_SELF] => ./test_php2     [SCRIPT_NAME] => ./test_php2     [SCRIPT_FILENAME] => ./test_php2     [PATH_TRANSLATED] => ./test_php2     [DOCUMENT_ROOT] =>      [REQUEST_TIME] => 1260658268     [argv] => Array       (         [0] => ./test_php2       )      [argc] => 1     ) 

I hope I don't expose relevant security information ;)

Windows Compatibility

Note that $_SERVER['HOME'] is not available on Windows. Instead, the variable is split into $_SERVER['HOMEDRIVE'] and $_SERVER['HOMEPATH'].