Assigning PHP variables in shell

For a project I am currently working on it was necessary to read PHP define()’d-values from a configuration file using a shell script that did some further processing.

In order to be able to read define()’d-values you need to first include() (or better require_once()) the source configuration file(s) and then assign its values to shell variables.

1. Determine path to PHP:

   PHP_PATH="/opt/lampp/bin/php"
   

2. Include any required configuration files:

   PHP_REQUIRE="require_once('$(pwd)/../src/config/base.php');"
   

3. Finally assign PHP variables to shell:

   RELEASE_NUMBER=`$PHP_PATH -r "$PHP_REQUIRE echo RELEASE_VERSION;"`
   

Hint: In case your PHP installation is included in PATH you can simply write PHP_PATH=”php”.

In this example the release version number is read from a base-configuration file, which will be used by the shell script for further processing.