Questions and Answers

Amy Rich

Q I've written a bunch of scripts in PHP that I recently tried to migrate from a machine running 4.2 to a machine running 5.2. When I run the scripts, I get all sorts of errors. A simple test script which illustrates the problems I'm having is:

#!/usr/bin/php -q /* -*- c -*- */
<?php
print("Hello, world.\n");
?>

Under PHP 4.2, this told the interpreter to ignore everything after the -q, and the output was simply Hello, world..

Under PHP 5.2, I get the PHP usage statement:

Usage: php [options] [-f] <file> [--] [args...]
       php [options] -r <code> [--] [args...]
       php [options] [-B <begin_code>] -R <code> [-E <end_code>] \
         [--] [args...]
       php [options] [-B <begin_code>] -F <file> [-E <end_code>] \
         [--] [args...]
       php [options] -- [args...]
       php [options] -a

  -a               Run interactively
  -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.