Question

Say I have a block of code I would like to test like this:

<?php 
 Print "Hello, World!";
?>

How I quickly run this code from terminal without saving it to a file?

I tried things like…

php -r "Print "Hello, World!";"

but just got complaints about syntax errors. There has to be a simple way of doing this. I just have yet to find any explanations.

Answer 1

Escape the inside double quotes (") that you are using to delimit your string.

php -r "Print \"Hello, World!\";"

Alternatively, use single quotes (') for the PHP string or for the quoting of the PHP code.

If you run php --help you can see a list of commands that the php program accepts.

  -a               Run as interactive shell
  -c <path>|<file> Look for php.ini file in this directory
  -n               No php.ini file will be used
  -d foo[=bar]     Define INI entry foo with value 'bar'
  -e               Generate extended information for debugger/profiler
  -f <file>        Parse and execute <file>.
  -h               This help
  -i               PHP information
  -l               Syntax check only (lint)
  -m               Show compiled in modules
  -r <code>        Run PHP <code> without using script tags <?..?>
  -B <begin_code>  Run PHP <begin_code> before processing input lines
  -R <code>        Run PHP <code> for every input line
  -F <file>        Parse and execute <file> for every input line
  -E <end_code>    Run PHP <end_code> after processing all input lines
  -H               Hide any passed arguments from external tools.
  -S <addr>:<port> Run with built-in web server.
  -t <docroot>     Specify document root <docroot> for built-in web server.
  -s               Output HTML syntax highlighted source.
  -v               Version number
  -w               Output source with stripped comments and whitespace.
  -z <file>        Load Zend extension <file>.

  args...          Arguments passed to script. Use -- args when first argument
                   starts with - or script is read from stdin

  --ini            Show configuration file names

  --rf <name>      Show information about function <name>.
  --rc <name>      Show information about class <name>.
  --re <name>      Show information about extension <name>.
  --rz <name>      Show information about Zend extension <name>.
  --ri <name>      Show configuration for extension <name>.