Question

Using PHP 5.3 if I send a JSON encoded string as an arugment via command line…

/usr/local/bin/php -q /path/to/script.php {"key":"test","cache":1}

… and in script.php the code is:

<?php print_r($argv); ?>

I get back:

Array
(
    [0] => /path/to/script.php
    [1] => key:test
    [2] => cache:1
)

Which is completely unexpected!

Whilst I can live with this I’d like to know where this is documented by PHP so that I am 100% sure it will work like this if I pass a JSON encoded string as an argument every time.

Also arrays within the JSON string don’t seem to work as expected.

Answer 1

If want to use special characters in a cli argument, you should always encapse them in quotes

"{\"key\":\"test\",\"cache\":1}"

'{"key":"test","cache":1}'