How can I get the path of the PHP binary from PHP?

Question

How can I get the binary path of php from PHP?

I saw it in phpinfo(), but I need another method that gets it in Linux and Windows systems.

possible duplicate of [Get current PHP executable from within script?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2372624/get-current-php-executable-from-within-script) — Gordon, Oct 08 '10 at 10:20

score 20 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:22

20

You can use:

$_SERVER['_']

Also, the predefined constant PHP_BINDIR gives the directory where the PHP executable is found.

Sample on CodePad and Ideone.

It looks like, for security reasons, $_SERVER values are not exposed.

edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:22

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 08 '10 at 10:11

codaddict

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11

In Windows, the PHP_BINDIR constant seems to point to "C:\php5" even if php is in a totally different directory, like for me "C:\dev\php". Here, PHP is setup as an apache module. – SirDarius Oct 08 '10 at 10:16
The server I was on unfortunately returned NULL, I assume due to security reasons. – Chris Nov 07 '13 at 14:21
2

PHP_BINDIR worked for me on Debian. $_SERVER['_'] didn't. – Jo Smo Oct 26 '16 at 12:23
it's not working. use this - http://stackoverflow.com/a/43015868/2574125 – aftamat4ik Mar 25 '17 at 11:38
3

PHP_BINDIR is set at compile time which means that it is wrong in most cases. PHP_BINARY is set at runtime. So use this instead. – Markus Müller Mar 18 '20 at 15:21
1

PHP_BINARY (since php v5.4; see https://stackoverflow.com/a/9182368/3102305) – Martin Rüegg Dec 16 '20 at 10:01

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:24

18

Linux Only

Use the "which" command to find php.

$phpPath = exec("which php");

Note this does not guarantee the same php executable that your web server may be using, but rather the first instance that was found while looking through the paths.

edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:24

Peter Mortensen

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answered May 02 '11 at 22:29

SeanDowney

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Good point but most hosting services don't allow `exec` at all. – Hossein Mar 16 '13 at 13:46
Yes, some hosts do not, others do, I guess it depends your context. – SeanDowney Mar 18 '13 at 16:33
4

This does not necessarily result in the correct php binary, since Apache and the command line might very well be using different ones. – Lars Ebert Jun 15 '16 at 12:28

score 11 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:23

11

A method using environment variables, assuming the php executable is in the system path.

function getPHPExecutableFromPath() {
  $paths = explode(PATH_SEPARATOR, getenv('PATH'));
  foreach ($paths as $path) {
    // We need this for XAMPP (Windows)
    if (strstr($path, 'php.exe') && isset($_SERVER["WINDIR"]) && file_exists($path) && is_file($path)) {
        return $path;
    }
    else {
        $php_executable = $path . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "php" . (isset($_SERVER["WINDIR"]) ? ".exe" : "");
        if (file_exists($php_executable) && is_file($php_executable)) {
           return $php_executable;
        }
    }
  }
  return FALSE; // Not found
}

edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:23

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 08 '10 at 10:22

SirDarius

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@ggirtsou I don't get your edit... why would the Windows Path contain an entry with "php.exe" ? If it is something specific to XAMPP please at least add a meaningful comment in the code. – SirDarius Oct 07 '12 at 19:56
@ggirtsou then add a meaningful comment in the code, because it is certainly not standard behaviour – SirDarius Oct 08 '12 at 10:07
Those file_exists() are redundant – ymakux Feb 16 '18 at 05:58

score 9 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:26

Maybe the best solution is in the Symfony process component:

PhpExecutableFinder.php and ExecutableFinder.php. In use:

<?php
    use Symfony\Component\Process\PhpExecutableFinder;

    $phpFinder = new PhpExecutableFinder;
    if (!$phpPath = $phpFinder->find()) {
        throw new \Exception('The php executable could not be found, add it to your PATH environment variable and try again');
    }

    return $phpPath;

score 4 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:27

4

Normally, in a simple default PHP installation under Windows, the php.ini file is located and loaded from the same directory of the PHP binary.

To simplify, Windows users:

echo dirname(php_ini_loaded_file()).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'php.exe';

Voilà!

Of course, if you are using multiple .ini files, it may not work if the files are not into the same PHP binary directory. BTW, this may solve to most of cases. Windows developers running PHP from local development environment.

edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:27

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 15 '16 at 11:37

Daniel Omine

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sorry forgot to say I am using mac – Evgeny Fedorenko May 13 '16 at 18:25
Are the last two sentences (directly) connected? – Peter Mortensen Dec 16 '20 at 12:27
This solved it for me, thanks! But you might want to add `chr(34)` so it will be `$runCommand = chr(34) . dirname(php_ini_loaded_file()).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'php.exe' . chr(34);` in order to support spaces in the path. Needed for example if like to run it in the background like in https://stackoverflow.com/a/73118719/4829915. – LWC Jul 03 '23 at 19:18

score 3 · Answer 6 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:30

3

In Windows, using WAMP, you can use the ini variable - extension_dir - as it is placed in the PHP folder.

Like this:

echo str_replace('ext/', 'php.exe', ini_get('extension_dir'));

edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:30

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jun 29 '16 at 15:22

John

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You shouldn't correlate this logic to that setting - even in WAMP or whatever - the setting might be changed intentionally. – Christian May 21 '23 at 13:10
You are absolutely correct. This would not work inside any framework or such that need to be able to work in every project out there. This was just the solution that worked best for me at the time for my local and server setup. – John May 23 '23 at 07:30

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 11:58

2

As of PHP 5.4 you can simply use the PHP_BINARY reserved constant.

edited Dec 16 '20 at 11:58

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jan 05 '20 at 12:58

Joe

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score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:35

0

It's very easy!

var_dump(getenv('PHPBIN'));

But it works only on Windows, so we should use this answer.

How did I get this? I just typed echo echo phpinfo(); and searched the php path there. Just see here:

Then I just getting it here: php getenv and ... you see the result.

edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:35

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 25 '17 at 11:37

aftamat4ik

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score 0 · Answer 9 · edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:36

0

For Windows and XAMPP:

$php = getenv('PHPRC') . '/php.exe';

if(is_file($expected)){
   return $php;
}

edited Dec 16 '20 at 12:36

Peter Mortensen

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answered Feb 16 '18 at 06:01

ymakux

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How can I get the path of the PHP binary from PHP?

9 Answers9

Linux Only

Linked