Can not use command line interpreter

Question

I have tried to execute simple php code in the php interpreter. When I executed the command php -a I getting the message

Interactive mode ena

Answer 1

After I got tired of compiling it on each machine I used PHPSH (as mentioned by joey-adams)

It is much better then php -a (syntax highlighting and autocompletion)

Install python phpsh

look at install-php5-with-readline-support-on-debian-wheezy

$ sudo apt-get install python # this is necessary to run phpsh
$ cd ~/

$ wget https://github.com/facebook/phpsh/zipball/master
$ unzip phpsh-master.zip

$ cd phpsh-master
$ sudo cp -r src /etc/phpsh # phpsh seems to complain unless it resides at /etc/phpsh
$ sudo ln -s /etc/phpsh/phpsh /usr/bin/phpsh # put phpsh on the $PATH