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+

Running via the CLI

+

As well as calling an applications Controllers +via the URL in a browser they can also be loaded via the command-line +interface (CLI).

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Page Contents

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What is the CLI?

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The command-line interface is a text-based method of interacting with +computers. For more information, check the Wikipedia +article.

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Why run via the command-line?

+

There are many reasons for running CodeIgniter from the command-line, +but they are not always obvious.

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  • Run your cron-jobs without needing to use wget or curl
    • +
  • Make your cron-jobs inaccessible from being loaded in the URL by +checking the return value of is_cli().
    • +
  • Make interactive “tasks” that can do things like set permissions, +prune cache folders, run backups, etc.
    • +
  • Integrate with other applications in other languages. For example, a +random C++ script could call one command and run code in your models!
    • +
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Let’s try it: Hello World!

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Let’s create a simple controller so you can see it in action. Using your +text editor, create a file called Tools.php, and put the following code +in it:

+
<?php
+class Tools extends CI_Controller {
+
+        public function message($to = 'World')
+        {
+                echo "Hello {$to}!".PHP_EOL;
+        }
+}
+
+
+

Then save the file to your application/controllers/ folder.

+

Now normally you would visit the site using a URL similar to this:

+
example.com/index.php/tools/message/to
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+
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Instead, we are going to open the terminal in Mac/Linux or go to Run > “cmd” +in Windows and navigate to our CodeIgniter project.

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$ cd /path/to/project;
+$ php index.php tools message
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+
+

If you did it right, you should see Hello World! printed.

+
$ php index.php tools message "John Smith"
+
+
+

Here we are passing it an argument in the same way that URL parameters +work. “John Smith” is passed as an argument and the output is:

+
Hello John Smith!
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+

That’s it!

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That, in a nutshell, is all there is to know about controllers on the +command line. Remember that this is just a normal controller, so routing +and _remap() works fine.

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