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<h2 class="title">Introduction</h2>
<p class="para">
PHP supports a <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> <acronym title="Server Application Programming Interface">SAPI</acronym> as of PHP 4.3.0. The main focus of this
<acronym title="Server Application Programming Interface">SAPI</acronym> is for developing shell applications with PHP. There
are quite a few differences between the <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> <acronym title="Server Application Programming Interface">SAPI</acronym> and other
<acronym title="Server Application Programming Interface">SAPI</acronym>s which are explained in this chapter. It is worth
mentioning that <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> and <acronym title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</acronym> are different
<acronym title="Server Application Programming Interface">SAPI</acronym>s although they do share many of the same behaviors.
</p>
<p class="para">
The <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> <acronym title="Server Application Programming Interface">SAPI</acronym> is enabled by default using
<strong class="option configure">--enable-cli</strong>
, but may be disabled using
the <strong class="option configure">--disable-cli</strong>
option when running
<strong class="command">./configure</strong>.
</p>
<p class="para">
The name, location and existence of the <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym>/<acronym title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</acronym>
binaries will differ depending on how PHP is installed on your system. By
default when executing <strong class="command">make</strong>, both the <acronym title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</acronym>
and <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> are built and placed as <var class="filename">sapi/cgi/php-cgi</var> and
<var class="filename">sapi/cli/php</var> respectively, in your PHP source directory.
You will note that both are named <var class="filename">php</var>. What happens during
<strong class="command">make install</strong> depends on your configure line. If a module
<acronym title="Server Application Programming Interface">SAPI</acronym> is chosen during configure, such as apxs, or the
<strong class="option configure">--disable-cgi</strong>
option is used, the <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> is
copied to <var class="filename">{PREFIX}/bin/php</var> during
<strong class="command">make install</strong> otherwise the <acronym title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</acronym> is placed
there. So, for example, if <strong class="option configure">--with-apxs </strong>
is
in your configure line then the <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> is copied to <var class="filename">{PREFIX}/bin/php
</var> during <strong class="command">make install</strong>. If you want to override
the installation of the <acronym title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</acronym> binary, use <strong class="command">make
install-cli</strong> after <strong class="command">make install</strong>. Alternatively you
can specify <strong class="option configure">--disable-cgi</strong>
in your configure
line.
</p>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
Because both <strong class="option configure">--enable-cli</strong>
and
<strong class="option configure">--enable-cgi</strong>
are enabled by default,
simply having <strong class="option configure">--enable-cli</strong>
in your
configure line does not necessarily mean the <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> will be copied as
<var class="filename">{PREFIX}/bin/php</var> during <strong class="command">make install</strong>.
</p>
</p></blockquote>
<p class="para">
As of PHP 5, the <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> binary is distributed in the main folder as <var class="filename">
php.exe</var> on Windows. The <acronym title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</acronym> version is
distributed as <var class="filename">php-cgi.exe</var>. Additionally, a <var class="filename">
php-win.exe</var> is distributed if PHP is configured using
<strong class="option configure">--enable-cli-win32</strong>
. This does the same as
the <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym> version, except that it doesn't output anything and thus provides
no console.
</p>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<strong>What SAPI do I have?</strong><br />
<p class="para">
From a shell, typing <strong class="command">php -v</strong> will tell you
whether <var class="filename">php</var> is <acronym title="Common Gateway Interface">CGI</acronym> or <acronym title="Command Line Interpreter/Interface">CLI</acronym>. See
also the function <span class="function"><a href="function.php-sapi-name.html" class="function">php_sapi_name()</a></span> and the constant
<strong><code>PHP_SAPI</code></strong>.
</p>
</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
A Unix <em>man</em>ual page is available by typing <strong class="command">man
php</strong> in the shell environment.
</p>
</p></blockquote>
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