[php] How to find the php.ini file used by the command line?

I need to enable pdo_mysql in my EasyPhp environment, so I went to php.ini file and uncommented the following line:

extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll

Unfortunately I still have the same problem. I'm using the CLI so I suppose I need to locate the php.ini file used by the CLI. How can I find it?

You can get a full phpinfo() using :

php -i 

And, in there, there is the php.ini file used :

$ php -i | grep 'Configuration File'
Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /etc
Loaded Configuration File => /etc/php.ini

On Windows use find instead:

php -i|find/i"configuration file"

In your php.ini file set your extension directory, e.g:

extension_dir = "C:/php/ext/"

You will see in you PHP folder there is an ext folder with all the dll's and extensions.

Somtimes things aren't always as they seem when in comes to config files in general. So here I'm applying my usual methods for exploring what files are opened by a process.

I use a very powerful and useful command-line program called strace to show me what's really going on behind my back!

$ strace -o strace.log php --version
$ grep php.ini strace.log

Strace digs out kernel (system) calls that your program makes and dumps the output into the file specified by -o

It's easy to use grep to search for occurrences of php.ini in this log. It's pretty obvious looking at the following typical response to see what is going on.

open("/usr/bin/php.ini", O_RDONLY)      = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/etc/php.ini", O_RDONLY)          = 3
lstat("/etc/php.ini", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=69105, ...}) = 0

There is no php.ini used by the command line. You have to copy the file from ...EasyPHP-<<version>>\apache\php.ini to ...EasyPHP-<<version>>\php\php.ini than edit the one in php directory

Reference:

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/1961355/339872

Run php --ini in your terminal, you'll get all details about ini files

[root@tamilan src]# php --ini
Configuration File (php.ini) Path: /etc
Loaded Configuration File:         /etc/php.ini
Scan for additional .ini files in: /etc/php.d
Additional .ini files parsed:      /etc/php.d/apc.ini,
/etc/php.d/bcmath.ini,
/etc/php.d/curl.ini,
/etc/php.d/dba.ini,
/etc/php.d/dom.ini,
/etc/php.d/fileinfo.ini,
/etc/php.d/gd.ini,
/etc/php.d/imap.ini,
/etc/php.d/json.ini,
/etc/php.d/mbstring.ini,
/etc/php.d/memcache.ini,
/etc/php.d/mysql.ini,
/etc/php.d/mysqli.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo_mysql.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo_sqlite.ini,
/etc/php.d/phar.ini,
/etc/php.d/posix.ini,
/etc/php.d/sqlite3.ini,
/etc/php.d/ssh2.ini,
/etc/php.d/sysvmsg.ini,
/etc/php.d/sysvsem.ini,
/etc/php.d/sysvshm.ini,
/etc/php.d/wddx.ini,
/etc/php.d/xmlreader.ini,
/etc/php.d/xmlwriter.ini,
/etc/php.d/xsl.ini,
/etc/php.d/zip.ini

For more, use helping command php --help It'll display all the possible options.

In docker container phpmyadmin/phpmyadmin no php.ini file. But there are two files : php.ini-debug and php.ini-production

To solve the problem, simply rename one of the files to php.ini and restart docker container.

Save CLI phpinfo output into local file:

php -i >> phpinfo-cli.txt

From what I remember when I used to use EasyPHP, the php.ini file is either in C:\Windows\ or C:\Windows\System32

If you need to pass it to another app, you can do something like:

php --ini | grep Loaded | cut -d" " -f12

returns the path only. php -c $(php --ini | grep Loaded | cut -d" " -f12) will pass in the config file (useful for fpm)

You can use get_cfg_var('cfg_file_path') for that:

To check whether the system is using a configuration file, try retrieving the value of the cfg_file_path configuration setting. If this is available, a configuration file is being used.

var_dump( get_cfg_var('cfg_file_path') );

And you can simply set the location of the php.ini. You're using the command line version, so using the -c parameter you can specifiy the location, e.g.

php -c /home/me/php.ini -f /home/me/test.php

The easiest way nowadays is to use PHP configure:

# php-config --ini-dir
/usr/local/etc/php/7.4/conf.d

There's more you can find there. Example output of the --help sub command (macOS local install):

# php-config --help
Usage: /usr/local/bin/php-config [OPTION]
Options:
  --prefixUsage: /usr/local/bin/php-config [OPTION]
Options:
  --prefix            [/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.11]
  --includes          [-I/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.11/include/php - …ETC…]
  --ldflags           [ -L/usr/local/Cellar/krb5/1.18.2/lib -…ETC…]
  --libs              [ -ltidy -largon2 …ETC… ]
  --extension-dir     [/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.11/pecl/20190902]
  --include-dir       [/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.11/include/php]
  --man-dir           [/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.11/share/man]
  --php-binary        [/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.11/bin/php]
  --php-sapis         [ apache2handler cli fpm phpdbg cgi]
  --ini-path          [/usr/local/etc/php/7.4]
  --ini-dir           [/usr/local/etc/php/7.4/conf.d]
  --configure-options [--prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/php/7.4.11 --…ETC…]
  --version           [7.4.11]
  --vernum            [70411]

If you want all the configuration files loaded, this is will tell you:

php -i | grep "\.ini"

Some systems load things from more than one ini file. On my ubuntu system, it looks like this:

$  php -i | grep "\.ini"
Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /etc/php5/cli
Loaded Configuration File => /etc/php5/cli/php.ini
Scan this dir for additional .ini files => /etc/php5/cli/conf.d
additional .ini files parsed => /etc/php5/cli/conf.d/apc.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/curl.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/gd.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/mcrypt.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/memcache.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/mysql.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/mysqli.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/pdo.ini,
/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/pdo_mysql.ini

Do

find / -type f -name "php.ini" 

This will output all files named php.ini.

Find out which one you're using, usually apache2/php.ini

On OSX Mavericks, running:

$ php -i | grep 'Configuration File'

Returned:

Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /etc
Loaded Configuration File:         (none)

In the /etc/ directory was:

php.ini.default

(as well as php-fpm.conf.default)

I was able to copy php.ini.default to php.ini, add date.timezone = "US/Central" to the top (right below [php]), and the problem is solved.

(At least the error message is gone.)