Running Symfony App Console From any Folder - php

Question

When I install a new Symfony application, either via composer or by downloading it directly, it ships with a command line console application. I can run this application with the following command
$ php app/console help
In other systems that have developer command line applications, (Drupal's drush, Magento's n98-magerun, etc.), the application is capable of figuring out where the root folder is when you're deep in the file hierarchy, and you can run the application from anywhere
$ cd some/drupal/path
$ drush //still works!
To do something similar with Symfony's app/console, you need to construct this path yourself
$ cd some/symfony/path
$ php ../../../app/console
And even this may not work if the command relies on the PHP working directory being the root directory.
Is there a standard/well-supported way to get the "run from any folder" behavior of other CLI applications with Symfony's app/console?

Answer 1

I use following console script for this purpose:
#!/usr/bin/env php
<?php
function fileLocator($file =null, $maxDepth = 10, $currentDir = ".")
{
if(empty($file)){
return false;
}elseif(file_exists($currentDir . "/$file")){
return $currentDir;
}elseif(--$maxDepth){
return fileLocator($file, $maxDepth, $currentDir . "/..");
}else{
return false;
}
}
$projectDir = fileLocator('app', 10, getcwd());
if($projectDir){
$projectDir = realpath($projectDir);
if(substr($projectDir, -1) != DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR){
$projectDir .= DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ;
}
$appDir = $projectDir . 'app';
}else {
die('You are not in symfony project');
}
// if you don't want to setup permissions the proper way, just uncomment the following PHP line
// read http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/installation.html#configuration-and-setup for more information
//umask(0000);
set_time_limit(0);
require_once $appDir.'/bootstrap.php.cache';
require_once $appDir.'/AppKernel.php';
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Console\Application;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArgvInput;
use Symfony\Component\Debug\Debug;
$input = new ArgvInput();
$env = $input->getParameterOption(array('--env', '-e'), getenv('SYMFONY_ENV') ?: 'dev');
$debug = getenv('SYMFONY_DEBUG') !== '0' && !$input->hasParameterOption(array('--no-debug', '')) && $env !== 'prod';
if ($debug) {
Debug::enable();
}
$kernel = new AppKernel($env, $debug);
$application = new Application($kernel);
$application->run($input);
For *nix users
Create console file with this code. put it in your global path of your choice(like /usr/local/bin/)
give it executable permission
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/console
you are ready to go. You can run console from within any directory of a symfony2 project.
For windows users:
Assuming you have your php path in path variable so you was able to execute console like php app/console.
create a console.php file with the same code. create a console.bat file with the following script:
#ECHO OFF
php "%~dp0sf.php" %*
copy both console.php and console.bat file in your php directory. Now you are ready to go.
Enjoy!!

Answer 2

you need to create a symlink
sudo ln -s /full/path/to/app/console /usr/local/bin/console
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/console
then you can run sudo console help

Answer 3

Here's a solution implemented as a Bash script, so suitable under Linux/Mac or Cygwin's bash prompt under Windows. It should work fine even if you swap regularly between projects, as it doesn't rely on environment variables.
Make a script with the following contents, make it executable (using chmod a+x) and then put it in your path:
#!/bin/sh
while [[ "`pwd`" != "/" ]]; do
app_dir=`find \`pwd\`/ -maxdepth 1 -name 'app'`
if [ -f "$app_dir/console" ]; then
php $app_dir/console $#
break
fi
cd ..
done
Then just use it anywhere within your Symfony project, and use it like you would use "php app/console". It doesn't depend on any environment variables - all it does is recursively look at parent folders from where you're located, looking for app/console, and then runs it with any and all the parameters you pass to it (that's what the $# symbol is for).

Answer 4

I created a Bundle for this to resolve. It is currently only a bash/fish script, which creates something like a virtual environment:
$ composer require sk/symfony-venv
// [...] wait for install
$ . vendor/bin/activate
(project) $ console
On https://github.com/skroczek/symfony-venv you can read more. Feedback is welcome. :)