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WebFiori CLI

Class library that can help in writing command line based applications with minimum dependencies using PHP.

Content

• Supported PHP Versions
• Features
• Sample Application
• Installation
• Creating and Running Commands
  • Creating a Command
  • Running a Command
  • Arguments
  • Adding Arguments to Commands
  • Accessing Argument Value
• Interactive Mode
• The help Command
  • Setting Help Instructions
  • Running help Command
  • General Help
  • Command-Specific Help
• Unit-Testing Commands

Supported PHP Versions

Build Status

Features

• Help in creating command line based applications.
• Support for interactive mode.
• Support for ANSI output.
• Support for implementing custom input and output streams.
• Ability to write tests for commands and test them using test automation tools.

Sample Application

A sample application can be found here: https://github.com/WebFiori/cli/tree/main/example

Installation

To install the library, simply include it in your composer.json's require section: "webfiori\cli":"*".

Creating and Running Commands

Creating a Command

First step in creating new command is to create a new class that extends the class webfiori\cli\CLICommand. The class CLICommand is a utility class which has methods that can be used to read inputs, send outputs and use command line arguments.

The class has one abstract method that must be implemented. The code that will exist in the body of the method will represent the logic of the command.

Running a Command

The class webfiori\cli\Runner is the class which is used to manage the logic of executing the commands. In order to run a command, an instance of this class must be created and used to register the command and start running the application.

To register a command, the method Runner::register() is used. To start the application, the method Runner::start() is used.

Now if terminal is opened and following command is executed:

The output will be the string Hi People!.

Arguments

Arguments is a way that can be used to pass values from the terminal to PHP process. They can be used to configure execution of the command. For example, a command might require some kind of file as input.

Adding Arguments to Commands

Arguments can be added in the constructor of the class as follows:

Arguments can be provided as an associative array or array of objects of type webfiori\cli\Argument. In case of associative array, Index is name of the argument and the value of the index is sub-associative array of options. Each argument can have the following options:

• optional: A boolean. if set to true, it means that the argument is optional. Default is false.
• default: An optional default value for the argument to use if it is not provided.
• description: A description of the argument which will be shown if the command help is executed.
• values: A set of values that the argument can have. If provided, only the values on the list will be allowed.

The class webfiori\cli\Option can be used to access the options.

Accessing Argument Value

Accessing the value of an argument is performed using the method CLICommand::getArgValue(string $argName). If argument is provided, the method will return its value as string. If not provided, null is returned.

Interactive Mode

Interactive mode is a way that can be used to keep your application running and execute more than one command using same PHP process. To start the application in interactive mode, add the argument -i when starting the application as follows:

This will show following output in terminal:

help Command

One of the commands which comes by default with the library is the help command. It can be used to display help instructions for all registered commands.

Note: In order to use this command, it must be registered using the method Runner::register().

Setting Help Instructions

Help instructions are provided by the developer who created the command during its implementation. Instructions can be set on the constructor of the class that extends the class webfiori\cli\CLICommand as a description. The description can be set for the command and its arguments.

Running help Command

Help command can be used in two ways, one way is to display a general help for the application and another one for specific command.

General Help

To show general help of the application, following command can be executed.

Output of this command will be as follows:

Note: Depending on registered commands, output may differ.

Command-Specific Help

To show help instructions for a specific command, the name of the command can be included using the argument --command-name as follows:

Output of this command will be as follows:

Unit-Testing Commands

The library provides the helper class webfiori\cli\CommandTestCase which can be used to write unit tests for diffrent commands. The developer have to only extend the class and use utility methods to write tests. The class is based on PHPUnit.

The class has two methods which can be used to execute tests:

• CommandTestCase::executeSingleCommand(): Used to run one command at a time and return its output.
• CommandTestCase::executeMultiCommand(): Used to register multiple commands,set default command and/or run one of registered commands.

First method is good to verify the output of one specific command. The second one is usefule to simulate the execution of an application with multiple commands.

Both methods support simulating arguments vector and user inputs.

A sample of tests can be found here