PhpStorm 2018.2 Help

PHP Command Line Tools

PhpStorm supports running commands of popular third-party or user-defined PHP tools: Symfony 1.1+, Symfony2, Zend Framework 1, Zend Framework 2 (ZFTool), Yii, Composer, Drush 5.8+, Laravel and Doctrine (Symfony console-based), WordPress Command Line Interface.

Before you start, make sure the Command Line Tool Support plugin is enabled on the Plugins settings page of the Settings / Preferences Dialog.

Integrating an external PHP command line tool with PhpStorm

  1. Download and install the tool.

  2. Choose the tool type and visibility. In the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), go to Tools | Command Line Tool Support.

    Click Add icon on the toolbar and in the Command Line Tools dialog choose the name of the tool from the list. In the Visibility area, specify whether you want to use the tool in the current project or globally, in any PhpStorm project, and click OK.

  3. In the Alias text box, accept the default alias to use in calls of tool commands or edit it, if necessary.

  4. Optionally customize the command set as described in Customizing a tool.

Running commands

Run a command

  1. On the main menu, choose Tools | Run Command. The Input pane opens as as a pop-up window or as a field at the bottom of the Command Line Tools Console tool window.

  2. Type the call of the command in the <tool alias> <command> format.

    The command execution result is displayed in the Output tab with the name of the command.

Save the command output

  1. Click icons toolbarDecorator export svg on the Output tab toolbar.

  2. In the Export Preview dialog that opens, specify the text file to store the output in or click Copy to save the output to the clipboard.

Terminate a command

  • Click icons actions suspend svg on the toolbar. If the Output tab is already closed, kill the current thread from the progress bar.

Customizing a tool

  1. Open the tool definition file. On the Command Line Tool Support page, select the tool in the list and click icons actions edit svg on the toolbar. The .xml tool descriptor opens in the editor.

  2. Update the definitions of the commands. As you type, .xml tool descriptor is checked for well-formedness on the fly.

  3. Reload the command definitions. On the Command Line Tool Support page, select the tool in the list and click icons actions refresh svg on the toolbar.

Defining your own command line tools

  1. Create a tool definition file.

  2. Create a custom PhpStorm tool. Open the Command Line Tool Support page (File | Settings | Tools | Command Line Tool Support for Windows and Linux or PhpStorm | Preferences | Tools | Command Line Tool Support for macOS). Click Add icon on the toolbar and in the Command Line Tools dialog box that opens, select Custom tool from the Choose tool list, and specify the visibility level for it (Project or Global).

  3. Specify the tool definition file and alias. In the Tool Settings dialog, type the path to the tool definition file, the tool alias, and provide a brief description of the tool. When you click OK, PhpStorm brings you to the Command Line Tool Support page, where the new tool is added to the list.

  4. Choose where to show the Input pane. See Choose the Input pane location above.

  5. Open the tool definition file. Select the newly created tool and click icons actions edit svg. The tool definition .xml file opens in the editor.

  6. Define the tool commands.

Keeping a tool descriptor consistent

Option 1: On-the-fly validation

Every time you edit a command definition in the xml tool descriptor, PhpStorm checks it for well-formedness on the fly.

Option 2: Full validation

Full validation is performed every time you invoke a command. If any inconsistencies are detected, the tool is marked with the Invalid description icon icons general warning svg on the Command Line Tool Support page.

To run full validation

  1. Open the Input pane On the main menu, choose Tools | Run Command. The Input pane opens as as a pop-up window or as a field at the bottom of the Command Line Tools Console tool window.

  2. Invoke validation Type the call of a command and in the Tool definition file errors tab, analyze the notifications on detected structure inconsistencies. Each notification shows a brief description of the problem, the file and the line number where the problem is detected.

    By default, the tab is hidden and opens when you click More in the Command Line Tool pop-up window with an error notification. To close the tab, click the cross on its header. To re-open it, click More once again.

Last modified: 21 November 2018

See Also