PHP, pass parameters from command line to a PHP script

Question

I want to pass parameters from PHP Command Line Interface, and then read in the values using PHP script, something like this:

<?php   $name1 = $argv[1];       echo $name1; ?> 

I pass the variable from CLI like this:

C:\xampp\php\php.exe name.php Robby 

The above works, I get Robby as the output.

But I want to do something like this:

C:\xampp\php\php.exe name.php -inputFirstName="Robby" 

So that the user is well informed to enter the correct parameters in the correct places. What is the appropriate way to parse these parameters?

Answer 1

When calling a PHP script from the command line you can use $argc to find out how many parameters are passed and $argv to access them. For example running the following script:

<?php     var_dump($argc); //number of arguments passed      var_dump($argv); //the arguments passed ?> 

Like this:-

php script.php arg1 arg2 arg3 

Will give the following output

int(4) array(4) {   [0]=>   string(21) "d:\Scripts\script.php"   [1]=>   string(4) "arg1"   [2]=>   string(4) "arg2"   [3]=>   string(4) "arg3" } 

See $argv and $argc for further details.

To do what you want, lets say

php script.php arg1=4 

You would need to explode the argument on the equals sign:-

list($key, $val) = explode('=', $argv[1]); var_dump(array($key=>$val)); 

That way you can have whatever you want in front of the equals sign without having to parse it, just check the key=>value pairs are correct. However, that is all a bit of a waste, just instruct the user on the correct order to pass the arguments.

Answer 2

I use this fairly concise method:

if($argc>1)   parse_str(implode('&',array_slice($argv, 1)), $_GET); 

Which would handle a call such as:

php script.php item1=4 item2=300 

By sending it into $_GET you automatically handle web or CLI access.

For commentary, this is doing the following:

• If the count of arguments is greater than one (as first item is the name of the script) the proceed
• Grab the arguments array excluding first item
• Turn it into a standard query string format with ampersands
• use parse_str to extract to the $_GET array