Executing php scripts without php prefix

Question

Right now, on Composer, I am trying to run PHP Unit Tests. Here is my composer.json

{
    "require-dev": {
        "phpunit/phpunit": "^5.7"
    },
    "autoload": {
        "classmap": ["src"]
    }
}

and to run this, I have to do: php vendor/bin/phpunit --colors tests

When in reality, I'd like to remove the php prefix and just do phpunit --colors tests

I have seen it done the 2nd way so many times in video tutorials, how do they do this?

I am running PHP 7.1.0RC6 on a MBPr.

Sorry if this is the wrong place but I would not know how I would begin to search for an answer so I finally gave up. — test
– test, Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 1:06
I think they just add the vendor/bin/phpunit to their path? — Jhecht
– Jhecht, Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 1:11
You could make an alias that runs php vendor/bin/phpunit --colors tests is that what you want? — chris85
– chris85, Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 1:13

Alex Blex · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-19 01:55:38Z

2

php is not a prefix but a name of the interpreter.

If you ls -al vendor/bin/phpunit you can see it is executable, and if you head vendor/bin/phpunit -n1 you will see the hashbang which points to the interpreter. This way the php prefix is redundant. ./vendor/bin/phpunit --colors tests does equally well.

To turn it to phpunit --colors tests you you can use simlinks, aliases, etc mentioned in the comments. It may be quite handy in dockerized app, but I wouldn't recommend it if you have more than one project with potentially different versions of phpunit installed.

As to online docs or video tutorials, they might come from stone ages of phpunit when it was available as pear package.

answered Dec 19, 2016 at 1:55

Alex Blex

37.3k7 gold badges53 silver badges86 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

ivanivan Over a year ago

Yup. And for most scripts, you can put the interpreter at the top of the file, like #!/bin/bash for a shell script or #!/usr/bin/perl for a perl script, then simply set the execute bit on the file. IIRC PHP started complaining about this a while back,but I just checked with a simple phpinfo() script and no errors or warnings.

test Over a year ago

Right, I meant the prefix of the command. But thank you. I see what you mean, I am following along Jefferey Way's laracasts and he is doing as the 2nd command I described. I used your way, it works. Thank you.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Executing php scripts without php prefix

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related