PHPCS not running on the command line?

Question

When I type in phpcs --version, instead of getting the version number, I get something like this:

/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 2: ?php: No such file or directory
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 3: /Applications: is a directory
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 4: Applications: command not found
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 5: Applications: command not found
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 6: Applications: command not found
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 7: Applications: command not found
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 8: Applications: command not found
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 9: Applications: command not found
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 10: Applications: command not found
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 11: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
/Applications/drupal/php/bin/phpcs: line 11: ` * @author    Greg Sherwood <[email protected]>'

It looks like its not reading PHP correctly. What did I misconfigure?

All I did was sudo pear install PHP_CodeSniffer. When I run it again, I get:

pear/PHP_CodeSniffer is already installed and is the same as the released version 1.3.5

Answer 1

When PEAR does an install of PHP_CodeSniffer, it changes the first line in the main phpcs script so that the #! line points to the PHP executable on your system.

So before install, the line looks like this: #!@php_bin@ and after install, it will look something like this (depending on where PHP is installed): #!/usr/bin/php

PEAR has a config setting which tells it where that PHP executable is installed. You can see this value by running pear config-show and looking for the value of PHP CLI/CGI binary (php_bin). You need to make sure this value is actually the location of PHP on your system or else all installs of scripts (like PHPUnit) will have a similar problem.

The best way to check this value is to run which php and set that value for the PEAR config variable. Then reinstall PHP_CodeSniffer so the replacement is done again.

So for my system, I'd do this:

$ which php
/usr/bin/php
$ sudo pear config-set php_bin /usr/bin/php
config-set succeeded
$ sudo pear uninstall php_codesniffer
uninstall ok: channel://pear.php.net/PHP_CodeSniffer-1.3.5
$ sudo pear install php_codesniffer
downloading PHP_CodeSniffer-1.3.5.tgz ...
Starting to download PHP_CodeSniffer-1.3.5.tgz (345,113 bytes)
......................................................................done: 345,113 bytes
install ok: channel://pear.php.net/PHP_CodeSniffer-1.3.5

If all goes well, you should see the correct #! line in your new phpcs file:

$ which phpcs
/usr/local/bin/phpcs
$ head -n 1 /usr/local/bin/phpcs
#!/usr/bin/php

If that looks correct, you'll be able to run the phpcs command without problems.

Answer 2

I struggled with this for a while but finally figured it out - if the PHP command you're invoking directly is a shell script wrapper around the real executable, you need to edit the first line of the phpcs script to invoke PHP via /usr/bin/env:

#!/usr/bin/env /Applications/acquia-drupal/php5_3/bin/php

or, just

#!/usr/bin/env php

Full context for searchers - before the fix:

~$ head -n 1 pear/bin/phpcs 
#!/Applications/acquia-drupal/php5_3/bin/php
~$ phpcs --version
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 2: ?php: No such file or directory
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 3: /Applications: is a directory
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 4: Desktop: command not found
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 5: Desktop: command not found
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 6: Desktop: command not found
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 7: Desktop: command not found
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 8: Desktop: command not found
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 9: Desktop: command not found
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 10: Desktop: command not found
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 11: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
/Users/mryan/pear/bin/phpcs: line 11: ` * @author    Greg Sherwood <[email protected]>'
~$ /Applications/acquia-drupal/php5_3/bin/php pear/bin/phpcs --version
PHP_CodeSniffer version 1.4.5 (stable) by Squiz Pty Ltd. (http://www.squiz.com.au)

After fix:

~$ head -n 1 pear/bin/phpcs
#!/usr/bin/env php
~$ phpcs --version
PHP_CodeSniffer version 1.4.5 (stable) by Squiz Pty Ltd. (http://www.squiz.com.au)

And now I can configure CodeSniffer in PhpStorm.