PHP - How to Best Determine If the Current Invocation Is from Cli or Web Server

PHP - how to best determine if the current invocation is from CLI or web server?

php_sapi_name is the function you will want to use as it returns a lowercase string of the interface type. In addition, there is the PHP constant PHP_SAPI.

Documentation can be found here: http://php.net/php_sapi_name

For example, to determine if PHP is being run from the CLI, you could use this function:

function isCommandLineInterface()
{
    return (php_sapi_name() === 'cli');
}

In PHP, how to detect the execution is from CLI mode or through browser ?

Use the php_sapi_name() function.

if (php_sapi_name() == "cli") {
    // In cli-mode
} else {
    // Not in cli-mode
}

Here are some relevant notes from the docs:

php_sapi_name — Returns the type of interface between web server and PHP

Although not exhaustive, the possible return values include aolserver, apache, apache2filter, apache2handler, caudium, cgi (until PHP 5.3), cgi-fcgi, cli, cli-server, continuity, embed, isapi, litespeed, milter, nsapi, phttpd, pi3web, roxen, thttpd, tux, and webjames.

How to distinguish command-line and web-server invocation?

If called from command line, the server variable HTTP_USER_AGENT is not set. I use this constant to define, whether the script is called from command line or not:

define("CLI", !isset($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']));

UPDATE: Since this answer is still marked as the 'correct' one, I'd like to revise my statement - relying on the "User-Agent" header can be problematic, since it's a user-defined value.

Please use php_sapi_name() == 'cli' or PHP_SAPI == 'cli', as suggested by Eugene/cam8001 in the comments.

Thanks for pointing this out!

What is the canonical way to determine commandline vs. http execution of a PHP script?

Use the php_sapi_name() function.

if (php_sapi_name() == "cli") {
    // In cli-mode
} else {
    // Not in cli-mode
}

Here are some relevant notes from the docs:

php_sapi_name — Returns the type of interface between web server and PHP

Although not exhaustive, the possible return values include aolserver, apache, apache2filter, apache2handler, caudium, cgi (until PHP 5.3), cgi-fcgi, cli, cli-server, continuity, embed, isapi, litespeed, milter, nsapi, phttpd, pi3web, roxen, thttpd, tux, and webjames.

In PHP >= 4.2.0, there is also a predefined constant, PHP_SAPI, that has the same value as php_sapi_name().

How to detect if in CLI mode with cgi-fcgi

Check the $_SERVER and the $_ENV superglobal arrays.

Try $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] or $_SERVER['argc'].

I found a good answer form https://stackoverflow.com/a/12654906/1197702

function drupal_is_cli() {
  return (!isset($_SERVER['SERVER_SOFTWARE']) && (php_sapi_name() == 'cli' || (is_numeric($_SERVER['argc']) && $_SERVER['argc'] > 0)));
}

How to determine if a PHP CLI script's output is being piped to another command?

You can use posix_isatty assuming you have the POSIX extension (you probably do):

posix_isatty(STDOUT)

If it's true, then you are not outputting to a pipe. isatty is a common method for doing this in C programs and others.

Note that this doesn't check that it's output to a pipe specifically, just whether it's output to an interactive terminal (a pipe is not one).

PHP wait for input from command line

The php man page for the cli has a comment here detailing a solution, (copied here for anyone else looking)

<?php
echo "Are you sure you want to do this?  Type 'yes' to continue: ";
$handle = fopen ("php://stdin","r");
$line = fgets($handle);
if(trim($line) != 'yes'){
    echo "ABORTING!\n";
    exit;
}
fclose($handle);
echo "\n"; 
echo "Thank you, continuing...\n";
?>

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