README

Overview

This library allows you to create an interactive shell application from a plain php object. Commands are routed to instance methods, and command arguments are passed over as method arguments.

Installation

You can simply download obj2cli.php file to your project's folder or install it via composer:

composer require flsouto/obj2cli

Notice: in both cases you will have to include the file manually, since it will not be autoloaded!

Usage

Let's say we want to create an app that has two available commands:

• say_hello - prints "hello" to stdout
• say - which takes a parameter and prints it

This is how you could implement it using obj2cli:

<?php // my_app.php

require_once('obj2cli.php');

class MyApp{
	
	function say_hello(){
		echo "Hello!";
	}

	function say($what){
		echo $what;
	}

}

obj2cli(new MyApp());

That's all! Save it as my_app.php and run it through the command line:

$ php my_app.php

A new session will start with the name of your app (which by default is the name of your object's class):

MyApp>

Now let's play around with it and see if it works as expected:

MyApp> say_hello
hello
MyApp> say Cool!
Cool!

Notice: command arguments are separated by space.

Optional parameters

If you provide a default value to a parameter it will work as expected:

<?php 
require_once('obj2cli.php');

class MyApp{
	
	function generate_file_name($name, $ext='txt'){
		echo $name.'.'.$ext;
	}

}

obj2cli(new MyApp());

$ php my_app.php
MyApp> generate_file_name cache	
cache.txt
MyApp> generate_file_name cache json
cache.json
MyApp> ^C

Especial Commands

help

The help command, if not defined in your class, will list all methods/commands available:

MyApp> help
- say_hello (no parameters)
- say <what>
- generate_file_name <name> [ext = txt]

command --help

Shows usage of one specific command:

MyApp> generate_file_name --help
generate_file_name <name> [ext = txt]

exit

Exists the app.

Notice: this is not the same as hitting CTRL+C. The exit command returns to the parent context (see below) while CTRL+C exists the entire app.

Creating child contexts

If a command returns another object, control will be passed to that object. See an example:

<?php
require_once('obj2cli.php');

class MyApp{
	
	function multiply($number){
		return new Multiply($number);
	}

}

class Multiply{

	var $number;

	function __construct($number){
		$this->number = $number;
	}

	function by($number2){
		echo $this->number * $number2;
	}

}

obj2cli(new MyApp());

$ php my_app.php 
MyApp> multiply 3

Multiply> by 5
15
Multiply> by 6
18
Multiply> by 7
21
Multiply> exit
MyApp> 

Notice how the "exit" command finished the "Multiply" context and brought us back to the "MyApp" parent context. CTRL+C would have closed both contexts.

Naming contexts

While the example above worked, it would be nice to customize the name of the "Multiply" context so that it read "Multiply 3...>". By default, the object's class name is used as name for the context, but this can be changed by implementing a method called getObj2cliName:

// ...
class Multiply{

	var $number;

	function __construct($number){
		$this->number = $number;
	}

	// Customize name of context
	function getObj2cliName(){
		return "Multiply $this->number....";
	}

	function by($number2){
		echo $this->number * $number2;
	}

}
//...

Running any class from the command line

This repository comes with a script called "run.php" which allows you to instantiate any class into an interactive shell program:

$ php run.php /path/to/file.php MyClass arg1 arg2
MyClass> 

If the class you want to work with is autoloaded by composer's autoloader, you should provide the path to vendor/autoload.php:

$ php run.php /path/to/vendor/autoload.php SomeClass arg1 arg2
SomeClass>

Final thoughts

This is a useful tool for building interactive shell programs very quickly and also can be used to test/debug classes on the fly.