What does #! mean prior to path in Php script?

Question

Trying to learn PHP and a more experienced dev made a number of modifications to my PHP script but I did not get an opp to ask what does the "#!" next to the path in my PHP script? This sits at the very top of the PHP file that I was working on:

#!/opt/local/bin/php

Any help/direction would be greatly appreciated.

Regards.

[Why exclamation is used in URLs? [closed]][1] [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4376719/why-exclamation-is-used-in-urls — Ben, Sep 20 '12 at 11:33
That is not PHP, it's a shell command for linux systems. I'm guessing that is for CLI. — Daniel, Sep 20 '12 at 11:33

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 20 '12 at 11:33

4

This is a way to tell Linux to run the script code using the application at /opt/local/bin/php. If you were running PHP as a plugin to apache, you'd use the <?php ?> tags to identify PHP code.

answered Sep 20 '12 at 11:33

Leonard

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The `` tags to identify PHP code are required by a "standalone" interpreter as well. Anything not enclosed by them is directed to STDOUT. – lafor Sep 20 '12 at 11:51

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 20 '12 at 11:34

Wikipedia explains it fairly simple: Shebang (unix)

Under Unix-like operating systems, when a script with a shebang is run as a program, the program loader parses the rest of the script's initial line as an interpreter directive; the specified interpreter program is run instead, passing to it as an argument the path that was initially used when attempting to run the script.[11] For example, if a script is named with the path "path/to/script", and it starts with the following line:

#!/bin/sh

then the program loader is instructed to run the program "/bin/sh" instead (usually this is the Bourne shell or a compatible shell), passing "path/to/script" as the first argument. The shebang line is usually ignored by the interpreter because the "#" character is a comment marker in many scripting languages; some language interpreters that do not use the hash mark to begin comments (such as Scheme) still may ignore the shebang line in recognition of its purpose.[12]

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 20 '12 at 11:33

It's called a Shebang see Wikipedia

Under Unix-like operating systems, when a script with a shebang is run as a program, the program loader parses the rest of the script's initial line as an interpreter directive; the specified interpreter program is run instead, passing to it as an argument the path that was initially used when attempting to run the script.[11]

What does #! mean prior to path in Php script?

3 Answers3