Interactive shell using PHP

Question

Just wondering, is it possible to create an interactive shell, using PHP alone. I mean something like you have with databases, python, etc.

If it is, how?

Answer 1

The way I understand your question you just want the PHP interpreter to run on the command line so you that it will evaluate any PHP code that you type. I use that feature of Python all the time to test code snippets. In which case I believe the answer you are looking for is to execute (from the command line):

php -a

Assuming PHP is in your path this will drop you in to the PHP interpreter, like it does on mine:

$ php -a
Interactive shell

php > 

From there you can start to evaluate arbitrary PHP expressions and see the results:

php > $a = 'abcdef';
php > echo strlen($a);
6