console.rst

single: Console; Create commands

Console Commands

The Symfony framework provides lots of commands through the bin/console script (e.g. the well-known bin/console cache:clear command). These commands are created with the Console component </components/console>. You can also use it to create your own commands.

The Console: APP_ENV & APP_DEBUG

Console commands run in the environment <config-dot-env> defined in the APP_ENV variable of the .env file, which is dev by default. It also reads the APP_DEBUG value to turn "debug" mode on or off (it defaults to 1, which is on).

To run the command in another environment or debug mode, edit the value of APP_ENV and APP_DEBUG.

Creating a Command

Commands are defined in classes extending Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Command\\Command. For example, you may want a command to create a user:

// src/Command/CreateUserCommand.php
namespace App\Command;

use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;

class CreateUserCommand extends Command
{
    protected function configure()
    {
        // ...
    }

    protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
    {
        // ...
    }
}

Configuring the Command

First of all, you must configure the name of the command in the configure() method. Then you can optionally define a help message and the input options and arguments </console/input>:

// ...
protected function configure()
{
    $this
        // the name of the command (the part after "bin/console")
        ->setName('app:create-user')

        // the short description shown while running "php bin/console list"
        ->setDescription('Creates a new user.')

        // the full command description shown when running the command with
        // the "--help" option
        ->setHelp('This command allows you to create a user...')
    ;
}

Executing the Command

Symfony registers any PHP class extending Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Command\\Command as a console command automatically. So you can now execute this command in the terminal:

$ php bin/console app:create-user

Note

If you're using the default services.yaml configuration <service-container-services-load-example>, your command classes are automatically registered as services.

You can also manually register your command as a service by configuring the service and tagging it </service_container/tags> with console.command.

As you might expect, this command will do nothing as you didn't write any logic yet. Add your own logic inside the execute() method, which has access to the input stream (e.g. options and arguments) and the output stream (to write messages to the console):

// ...
protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
{
    // outputs multiple lines to the console (adding "\n" at the end of each line)
    $output->writeln([
        'User Creator',
        '============',
        '',
    ]);

    // outputs a message followed by a "\n"
    $output->writeln('Whoa!');

    // outputs a message without adding a "\n" at the end of the line
    $output->write('You are about to ');
    $output->write('create a user.');
}

Now, try executing the command:

$ php bin/console app:create-user
User Creator
============

Whoa!
You are about to create a user.

Console Input

Use input options or arguments to pass information to the command:

use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputArgument;

// ...
protected function configure()
{
    $this
        // configure an argument
        ->addArgument('username', InputArgument::REQUIRED, 'The username of the user.')
        // ...
    ;
}

// ...
public function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
{
    $output->writeln([
        'User Creator',
        '============',
        '',
    ]);

    // retrieve the argument value using getArgument()
    $output->writeln('Username: '.$input->getArgument('username'));
}

Now, you can pass the username to the command:

$ php bin/console app:create-user Wouter
User Creator
============

Username: Wouter

Read /console/input for more information about console options and arguments.

Getting Services from the Service Container

To actually create a new user, the command has to access to some services </service_container>. Since your command is already registered as a service, you can use normal dependency injection. Imagine you have a App\Service\UserManager service that you want to access:

// ...
use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use App\Service\UserManager;

class CreateUserCommand extends Command
{
    private $userManager;

    public function __construct(UserManager $userManager)
    {
        $this->userManager = $userManager;

        parent::__construct();
    }

    // ...

    protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
    {
        // ...

        $this->userManager->create($input->getArgument('username'));

        $output->writeln('User successfully generated!');
    }
}

Command Lifecycle

Commands have three lifecycle methods that are invoked when running the command:

Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Command\\Command::initialize (optional)

This method is executed before the interact() and the execute() methods. Its main purpose is to initialize variables used in the rest of the command methods.

Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Command\\Command::interact (optional)

This method is executed after initialize() and before execute(). Its purpose is to check if some of the options/arguments are missing and interactively ask the user for those values. This is the last place where you can ask for missing options/arguments. After this command, missing options/arguments will result in an error.

Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Command\\Command::execute (required)

This method is executed after interact() and initialize(). It contains the logic you want the command to execute.

Testing Commands

Symfony provides several tools to help you test your commands. The most useful one is the Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Tester\\CommandTester class. It uses special input and output classes to ease testing without a real console:

// tests/Command/CreateUserCommandTest.php
namespace App\Tests\Command;

use App\Command\CreateUserCommand;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Console\Application;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Test\KernelTestCase;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Tester\CommandTester;

class CreateUserCommandTest extends KernelTestCase
{
    public function testExecute()
    {
        $kernel = self::bootKernel();
        $application = new Application($kernel);

        $application->add(new CreateUserCommand());

        $command = $application->find('app:create-user');
        $commandTester = new CommandTester($command);
        $commandTester->execute(array(
            'command'  => $command->getName(),

            // pass arguments to the helper
            'username' => 'Wouter',

            // prefix the key with two dashes when passing options,
            // e.g: '--some-option' => 'option_value',
        ));

        // the output of the command in the console
        $output = $commandTester->getDisplay();
        $this->assertContains('Username: Wouter', $output);

        // ...
    }
}

Tip

You can also test a whole console application by using Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Tester\\ApplicationTester.

Note

When using the Console component in a standalone project, use Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Application <Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Application> and extend the normal \PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase.

To be able to use the fully set up service container for your console tests you can extend your test from Symfony\\Bundle\\FrameworkBundle\\Test\\KernelTestCase:

// ...
use Symfony\Component\Console\Tester\CommandTester;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Console\Application;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Test\KernelTestCase;

class CreateUserCommandTest extends KernelTestCase
{
    public function testExecute()
    {
        $kernel = static::createKernel();
        $kernel->boot();

        $application = new Application($kernel);
        $application->add(new CreateUserCommand());

        $command = $application->find('app:create-user');
        $commandTester = new CommandTester($command);
        $commandTester->execute(array(
            'command'  => $command->getName(),
            'username' => 'Wouter',
        ));

        $output = $commandTester->getDisplay();
        $this->assertContains('Username: Wouter', $output);

        // ...
    }
}

Learn More

console/*

The console component also contains a set of "helpers" - different small tools capable of helping you with different tasks:

• /components/console/helpers/questionhelper: interactively ask the user for information
• /components/console/helpers/formatterhelper: customize the output colorization
• /components/console/helpers/progressbar: shows a progress bar
• /components/console/helpers/table: displays tabular data as a table