PHP

Run the PHP examples calling byexample as:

$ byexample -l php your-file-here                # byexample: +skip

To support PHP, byexample relays in the interactive mode of the php interpreter.

From PHP 5.1.0 this is available as long as the interpreter is compiled with readline support. See interactive.php.

Stability: unsupported - it may work but currently it is not possible to offer any guarantees. Contributions from the community are needed!

Variable and function definitions

Variables are local the scope and cannot be used inside of a function: there are not global and there is not support for closures in PHP.

php> $a = 2;
php> function foo($b) {
...>     echo $b;
...> }

php> foo($a);
2

Note how all the expressions must end with a ;.

Syntax errors

byexample will show you the syntax errors detected by php. You can even check for them as part of the normal output:

php> for ($i = 0; $i < unknown; $i+=1) {
...>    echo $i;
...> }
PHP Notice:  Use of undefined constant unknown - assumed 'unknown' in php shell code on line <...>

Known limitations

Explicit pretty print

To pretty print a variable or expression, you need to call var_dump or print_r (or other that you want) explicitly.

php> $arr = [1, [1.5, 1.6], 2];

php> $arr;  // nothing is printed

php> var_dump($arr);
array(3) {
  [0]=>
  int(1)
  [1]=>
  array(2) {
    [0]=>
    float(1.5)
    [1]=>
    float(1.6)
  }
  [2]=>
  int(2)
}

php> print_r($arr);         // byexample: +norm-ws
Array
(
    [0] => 1
    [1] => Array
        (
            [0] => 1.5
            [1] => 1.6
        )
    [2] => 2
)

var_dump and print_r may add some extra spaces and new lines (especially print_r) that will interfere with the output. For complex structures using +norm-ws fixes the problem.

Terminal support

To work with the current PHP interpreter, the ANSI terminal emulator is enabled by default (+term=ansi) and cannot be disabled.

Also, the terminal geometry cannot by changed after launching the interpreter so the option +geometry cannot be used in an example (but it can be used from the command line)

The amount of rows of the terminal has a minimum value of 2048 and this limit is really important: if your outputs have more than 2048 lines you will need to increase the geometry or the results may be undefined.

The same for the width of the terminal: minimum of 1024 columns.

Echoed input lines

If the PHP snippet has a very long line, greater than the terminal’s width, the last part of the line that does not fit in the terminal will be echoed in the output of the example.

This is an annoying artifact due how php -a works.

A simple workaround is to make the lines of the code in the snippet shorter or increase the terminal width.

Abort on a timeout

If a PHP example takes too long and timeout, the whole execution timeout.

Type text

The type feature (+type) is not supported.

PHP specific options

$ byexample -l php --show-options       # byexample: +norm-ws
<...>
php's specific options
----------------------
  None.