How to enable pathautocompletion from windows commandline - php

Question

I want to ask the user to locate a folder on the (windows) commandline.
Usually you'll be able to use autocomplete with the [tab] key.
But not if I ask this from a phpscript.
I use this class:
<?php
class CLQuestion
{
protected $_awnser;
protected $_options;
protected $_question;
public function __construct($question, $options = array())
{
$this->_question = $question;
$this->_options = $options;
$this->askQuestion();
$this->waitForAwnser();
}
protected function askQuestion()
{
echo PHP_EOL . $this->_question . PHP_EOL;
}
protected function waitForAwnser()
{
while (true) {
$response = strtolower(trim(fgets(STDIN)));
// are options given?
if (empty($this->_options)) {
// no options given, so the response is our awnser
$this->_awnser = $response;
break;
} else if (!empty($this->_options) && in_array($response, $this->_options)) {
// options given and found in options
$this->_awnser = $response;
break;
} else {
// options given and not found.
echo PHP_EOL . 'Please use one of these options: ';
echo PHP_EOL . " " . implode(PHP_EOL . " ", $this->_options);
echo PHP_EOL;
continue;
}
}
}
public function getAwnser()
{
return $this->_awnser;
}
}
With this usage:
<?php
$question = new CLQuestion('Where is you folder located?');
$question->getAwnser(); // path typed
Windows CMD will give me a way to interact, but when i use the [tab] key, it does not autocomplete but it show a tab.
Am I able to activate path autocompletion in some way?

Answer 1

autocompletion is a feature of a windows shell prompt.
When you run an application like:
php script.php
this application gains control over STDIN and STDOUT and magic shell features like autocompletion will work no more until this app finishes.
This for example allows you to run one shell inside another.
If you need autocompletion in your script, you will need to implement it yourself. Instead of reading whole line with fgets(STDIN) you could read it char by char with fgetc(STDIN) and when the char will equal "\t" you would have to list files in current directory with php functions and check witch paths are matching to what user have written till now. So you will basically have to re-implement fgets adding magic autocompletion feature.
But instead of doing this and implementing your own shell I guess it would be far more better to make the folder location a script argument:
<?php
if(empty($argv[1])) die("usage: php script.php folderpath");
echo "your folder is located at:" . $argv[1];
So you could call it from windows shell like:
#php script.php
usage: php script.php folderpath
#php script.php foldername
your folder is located at: foldername
And then the autocompletion feature will work.