[php] PHP passing $_GET in linux command prompt

Say we usually access via

http://localhost/index.php?a=1&b=2&c=3

How do we execute the same in linux command prompt?

php -e index.php

But what about passing the $_GET variables? Maybe something like php -e index.php --a 1 --b 2 --c 3? Doubt that'll work.

Thank you!

php file_name.php var1 var2 varN

Then set your $_GET variables on your first line in PHP, although this is not the desired way of setting a $_GET variable and you may experience problems depending on what you do later with that variable.

if (isset($argv[1])) {
   $_GET['variable_name'] = $argv[1];
}

the variables you launch the script with will be accessible from the $argv array in your PHP app. the first entry will the name of the script they came from, so you may want to do an array_shift($argv) to drop that first entry if you want to process a bunch of variables. Or just load into a local variable.

or just (if you have LYNX):

lynx 'http://localhost/index.php?a=1&b=2&c=3'

-- Option 1: php-cgi --

Use 'php-cgi' in place of 'php' to run your script. This is the simplest way as you won't need to specially modify your php code to work with it:

php-cgi -f /my/script/file.php a=1 b=2 c=3

-- Option 2: if you have a web server --

If the php file is on a web server you can use 'wget' on the command line:

wget 'http://localhost/my/script/file.php?a=1&b=2&c=3'

OR:

wget -q -O - "http://localhost/my/script/file.php?a=1&b=2&c=3"

-- Accessing the variables in php --

In both option 1 & 2 you access these parameters like this:

$a = $_GET["a"];
$b = $_GET["b"];
$c = $_GET["c"];

From this answer on ServerFault:

Use the php-cgi binary instead of just php, and pass the arguments on the command line, like this:

php-cgi -f index.php left=1058 right=1067 class=A language=English

Which puts this in $_GET:

Array
(
    [left] => 1058
    [right] => 1067
    [class] => A
    [language] => English
)

You can also set environment variables that would be set by the web server, like this:

REQUEST_URI='/index.php' SCRIPT_NAME='/index.php' php-cgi -f index.php left=1058 right=1067 class=A language=English

If you need to pass $_GET, $_REQUEST, $_POST, or anything else you can also use PHP interactive mode:

php -a

Then type:

<?php
$_GET['a']=1;
$_POST['b']=2;
include("/somefolder/some_file_path.php");

This will manually set any variables you want and then run your php file with those variables set.

If you have the possibility to edit the PHP script, you can artificially populate $_GET array using the following code at the beginning of the script and then call the script with the syntax: php -f script.php name1=value1 name2=value2

// When invoking the script via CLI like "php -f script.php name1=value1 name2=value2", this code will populate $_GET variables called "name1" and "name2", so a script designed to be called by a web server will work even when called by CLI
if (php_sapi_name() == "cli") {
    for ($c = 1; $c < $argc; $c++) {
        $param = explode("=", $argv[$c], 2);
        $_GET[$param[0]] = $param[1]; // $_GET['name1'] = 'value1'
    }
}

php -r 'parse_str($argv[2],$_GET);include $argv[1];' index.php 'a=1&b=2'

You could make the first part as an alias:

alias php-get='php -r '\''parse_str($argv[2],$_GET);include $argv[1];'\'

then simply use:

php-get some_script.php 'a=1&b=2&c=3'

Try using WGET:

WGET 'http://localhost/index.php?a=1&b=2&c=3'

I just pass them like this:

php5 script.php param1=blabla param2=yadayada

works just fine, the $_GET array is:

array(3) {
  ["script_php"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["param1"]=>
  string(6) "blabla"
  ["param2"]=>
  string(8) "yadayada"
}

At the command line paste the following

export QUERY_STRING="param1=abc&param2=xyz" ;  
POST_STRING="name=John&lastname=Doe" ; php -e -r 
'parse_str($_SERVER["QUERY_STRING"], $_GET); parse_str($_SERVER["POST_STRING"], 
$_POST);  include "index.php";'

I don't have a php-cgi binary on Ubuntu, so I did this:

% alias php-cgi="php -r '"'parse_str(implode("&", array_slice($argv, 2)), $_GET); include($argv[1]);'"' --"
% php-cgi test1.php foo=123
<html>
You set foo to 123.
</html>

%cat test1.php
<html>You set foo to <?php print $_GET['foo']?>.</html>

Sometimes you don't have the option of editing the php file to set $_GET to the parameters passed in, and sometimes you can't or don't want to install php-cgi.

I found this to be the best solution for that case:

php -r '$_GET["key"]="value"; require_once("script.php");' 

This avoids altering your php file and lets you use the plain php command. If you have php-cgi installed, by all means use that, but this is the next best thing. Thought this options was worthy of mention

the -r means run the php code in the string following. you set the $_GET value manually there, and then reference the file you want to run.

Its worth noting you should run this in the right folder, often but not always the folder the php file is in. Requires statements will use the location of your command to resolve relative urls, NOT the location of the file