Creating a Command Line (CLI) Application

CLI applications are executed from the command line. They are useful to create cron jobs, scripts, command utilities and more.

Structure

A minimal structure of a CLI application will look like this:

• app/config/config.php
• app/tasks/MainTask.php
• app/cli.php <– main bootstrap file
  

Creating a Bootstrap

As in regular MVC applications, a bootstrap file is used to bootstrap the application. Instead of the index.php bootstrapper in web applications, we use a cli.php file for bootstrapping the application.

Below is a sample bootstrap that is being used for this example.

<?php
use Phalcon\Di\FactoryDefault\Cli as CliDI;
use Phalcon\Cli\Console as ConsoleApp;
use Phalcon\Loader;
// Using the CLI factory default services container
$di = new CliDI();
/**
 * Register the autoloader and tell it to register the tasks directory
 */
$loader = new Loader();
$loader->registerDirs(
    [
        __DIR__ . '/tasks',
    ]
);
$loader->register();
// Load the configuration file (if any)
$configFile = __DIR__ . '/config/config.php';
if (is_readable($configFile)) {
    $config = include $configFile;
    $di->set('config', $config);
}
// Create a console application
$console = new ConsoleApp();
$console->setDI($di);
/**
 * Process the console arguments
 */
$arguments = [];
foreach ($argv as $k => $arg) {
    if ($k === 1) {
        $arguments['task'] = $arg;
    } elseif ($k === 2) {
        $arguments['action'] = $arg;
    } elseif ($k >= 3) {
        $arguments['params'][] = $arg;
    }
}
try {
    // Handle incoming arguments
    $console->handle($arguments);
} catch (\Phalcon\Exception $e) {
    // Do Phalcon related stuff here
    // ..
    fwrite(STDERR, $e->getMessage() . PHP_EOL);
    exit(1);
} catch (\Throwable $throwable) {
    fwrite(STDERR, $throwable->getMessage() . PHP_EOL);
    exit(1);
} catch (\Exception $exception) {
    fwrite(STDERR, $exception->getMessage() . PHP_EOL);
    exit(1);
}

This piece of code can be run using:

php app/cli.php

Tasks

Tasks work similar to controllers. Any CLI application needs at least a MainTask and a mainAction and every task needs to have a mainAction which will run if no action is given explicitly.

Below is an example of the app/tasks/MainTask.php file:

<?php
use Phalcon\Cli\Task;
class MainTask extends Task
{
    public function mainAction()
    {
        echo 'This is the default task and the default action' . PHP_EOL;
    }
}

Processing action parameters

It’s possible to pass parameters to actions, the code for this is already present in the sample bootstrap.

If you run the application with the following parameters and action:

<?php
use Phalcon\Cli\Task;
class MainTask extends Task
{
    public function mainAction()
    {
        echo 'This is the default task and the default action' . PHP_EOL;
    }
    /**
     * @param array $params
     */
    public function testAction(array $params)
    {
        echo sprintf('hello %s', $params[0]);
        echo PHP_EOL;
        echo sprintf('best regards, %s', $params[1]);
        echo PHP_EOL;
    }
}

We can then run the following command:

php app/cli.php main test world universe
hello world
best regards, universe

Running tasks in a chain

It’s also possible to run tasks in a chain if it’s required. To accomplish this you must add the console itself to the DI:

<?php
$di->setShared("console", $console);
try {
    // Handle incoming arguments
    $console->handle($arguments);
} catch (\Phalcon\Exception $e) {
    // Do Phalcon related stuff here
    // ..
    fwrite(STDERR, $e->getMessage() . PHP_EOL);
    exit(1);
} catch (\Throwable $throwable) {
    fwrite(STDERR, $throwable->getMessage() . PHP_EOL);
    exit(1);
} catch (\Exception $exception) {
    fwrite(STDERR, $exception->getMessage() . PHP_EOL);
    exit(1);
}

Then you can use the console inside of any task. Below is an example of a modified MainTask.php:

<?php
use Phalcon\Cli\Task;
class MainTask extends Task
{
    public function mainAction()
    {
        echo "This is the default task and the default action" . PHP_EOL;
        $this->console->handle(
            [
                "task"   => "main",
                "action" => "test",
            ]
        );
    }
    public function testAction()
    {
        echo "I will get printed too!" . PHP_EOL;
    }
}

However, it’s a better idea to extend Phalcon\Cli\Task and implement this kind of logic there.