Command Line

Question 1

How can the CLI SAPI be disabled?

Answer 1

By using the –disable-cli option when running ./configure.

Question 2

How can you determine whether you have CGI or CLI SAPI?

Answer 2

Type ‘php -v’ at the shell.

Question 3

How does the CLI SAPI differ from other SAPIs?

Answer 3

• No headers are written to output, and there’s no switch to enable them.
• It does not change the working directory to that of the script.
• Plain text error messages.
• Certain php.ini directives are overridden by the CLI SAPI because they do not make sense in shell environments.

Question 4

What php.ini directives are overridden by the CLI SAPI?

Answer 4

html_errors - defaults to false, as these can be hard to read from the command line.

implicit_flush - output is displayed immediately, and not held in a buffer.

max_execution_time - set to unlimited for the shell.

register_argc_argv - defaults to true, so that scripts executed via the CLI SAPI always have access to argc (number of arguments passed to the application) and argv (array of the actual arguments).

output_buffering - FALSE

max_input_time - FALSE; the CLI does not support GET, POST, or file uploads.

Question 5

Can the CLI SAPI overridden directives be altered in php.ini or a custom .ini file?

Answer 5

No. However, their values can be changed during runtime.

Question 6

Does the CLI SAPI change the current directory to the directory of the executed script?

Answer 6

No.

Question 7

How can you display the list of PHP command line options?

Answer 7

php -h

Question 8

How can you pass arguments to a script on the PHP command line?

Answer 8

The first argument must be –

Otherwise, PHP will interpret them as PHP options.

Question 9

How can you test for syntax AND fatal errors on the command line?

Answer 9

With the -f switch.

Question 10

On the command line, what options will not work with together with -l?

Answer 10

-r

Question 11

How can you print built-in (and loaded) PHP and Zend modules?

Answer 11

php -m

Question 12

How can you execute php directly on the command line?

Answer 12

With the -r switch.

Question 13

What’s problematic about using double quotes with the -r option to execute php directly on the command line?

Answer 13

sh/bash performs variable substitution when using double quotes. However, variables in single-quoted strings are not expanded by sh/bash.

Question 14

Is -r available in the CGI SAPI?

Answer 14

No.

Question 15

What is the -S flag for PHP?

Answer 15

It starts the built-in web server.

Question 16

What does php -z do?

Answer 16

Loads Zend extension.

Question 17

What does php –ini do?

Answer 17

Show configuration file names and scanned directories.

Question 18

What does php -rf do?

Answer 18

Show information about the given function or class method.

Question 19

What does php -rc do?

Answer 19

Show information about the given class.

Question 20

What are the three ways of supplying the CLIP SAPI with PHP code to be executed?

Answer 20

1. Tell PHP to execute a file. php myscript.php or php -f myscript.php (the filename is not required to have a .php extension).
2. Pass the PHP code to execute directly on the command line.
3. Provide the PHP code to execute via standard input.

These cannot be combined.

Question 21

Can you use the beginning and ending php tags with the -r switch?

Answer 21

No. It will lead to a parse error.

Question 22

The arguments to a command line php script are available in the global array…

Answer 22

…$argv

Question 23

What does the first index (0) of $argv contain?

Answer 23

The name of the script as called from the command line.

Question 24

When is the value of $argv just a dash?

Answer 24

When the code is executed inline using the command line switch -r (the same is true if the code is executed via a pipe from STDIN).

Question 25

What do you do if you have to pass an argument beginning with a - to a command line php script?

Answer 25

Use the argument list separator: –

Question 26

Does the shebang line for unix PHP scripts cause problems on Windows?

Answer 26

No.

Question 27

What constants does the CLI SAPI define?

Answer 27

STDIN, STDOUT, and STDERR

Question 28

Are the CLI SAPI streams closed automatically?

Answer 28

Yes, when the PHP script ends.

Question 29

When are the CLI SAPI streams not available?

Answer 29

When reading the PHP script from stdin.

Question 30

How is the interactive shell enabled?

Answer 30

Using the -a option, as long as PHP is compiled with the –with-readline option.

Question 31

Where is the interactive shell history stored?

Answer 31

~/.php_history

Question 32

What are the cli.pager and cli.prompt settings in php.ini?

Answer 32

cli. pager - allows an external program such as less to act as the pager for the output, instead of being displayed directly on the screen.
cli. prompt - makes it possible to change the php > prompt.

Question 33

Can you set php.ini settings in the interactive shell using a shorthand notation?

Answer 33

Yes.

Question 34

Can you have PHP code executed in the shell prompt?

Answer 34

Yes; enclose the code in backticks.

Question 35

Which escape sequences are supported in the cli.prompt ini setting?

Answer 35

\e - used for adding colors
\v - the PHP version
\b - indicates which block PHP is in
> - indicates the prompt character

Question 36

What is not available if using PHP in interactive CLI mode?

Answer 36

Autoloading.

Question 37

With the built-in web server, from where are URI requests served?

Answer 37

From the current working directory where PHP was started, unless the -t option is used to specify an explicit document root. If the URI request does not specify a file, then either index.php or index.html in the given directory are returned. If neither exists, then a 404 response code is returned.

Question 38

How do you start the built-in PHP webserver?

Answer 38

php -S localhost:8000

Question 39

How can you make the built-in PHP webserver accessible on port 8000 to any interface?

Answer 39

php -S 0.0.0.0:8000