How to create a Console Command

The Console page of the Components section (The Console Component) covers how to create a console command. This cookbook article covers the differences when creating console commands within the Symfony2 framework.

Automatically Registering Commands

To make the console commands available automatically with Symfony2, create a Command directory inside your bundle and create a PHP file suffixed with Command.php for each command that you want to provide. For example, if you want to extend the AcmeDemoBundle (available in the Symfony Standard Edition) to greet you from the command line, create GreetCommand.php and add the following to it:

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        // src/Acme/DemoBundle/Command/GreetCommand.php
namespace Acme\DemoBundle\Command;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Command\ContainerAwareCommand;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputArgument;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputOption;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;

class GreetCommand extends ContainerAwareCommand
{
    protected function configure()
    {
        $this
            ->setName('demo:greet')
            ->setDescription('Greet someone')
            ->addArgument('name', InputArgument::OPTIONAL, 'Who do you want to greet?')
            ->addOption('yell', null, InputOption::VALUE_NONE, 'If set, the task will yell in uppercase letters')
        ;
    }

    protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
    {
        $name = $input->getArgument('name');
        if ($name) {
            $text = 'Hello '.$name;
        } else {
            $text = 'Hello';
        }

        if ($input->getOption('yell')) {
            $text = strtoupper($text);
        }

        $output->writeln($text);
    }
}
    

This command will now automatically be available to run:

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        $ app/console demo:greet Fabien
    

Getting Services from the Service Container

By using ContainerAwareCommand as the base class for the command (instead of the more basic Command), you have access to the service container. In other words, you have access to any configured service. For example, you could easily extend the task to be translatable:

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        protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
{
    $name = $input->getArgument('name');
    $translator = $this->getContainer()->get('translator');
    if ($name) {
        $output->writeln($translator->trans('Hello %name%!', array('%name%' => $name)));
    } else {
        $output->writeln($translator->trans('Hello!'));
    }
}
    

Testing Commands

When testing commands used as part of the full framework Symfony\\Bundle\\FrameworkBundle\\Console\\Application should be used instead of Symfony\\Component\\Console\\Application:

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        use Symfony\Component\Console\Tester\CommandTester;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Console\Application;
use Acme\DemoBundle\Command\GreetCommand;

class ListCommandTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    public function testExecute()
    {
        // mock the Kernel or create one depending on your needs
        $application = new Application($kernel);
        $application->add(new GreetCommand());

        $command = $application->find('demo:greet');
        $commandTester = new CommandTester($command);
        $commandTester->execute(
            array(
                'command' => $command->getName(),
                'name'    => 'Fabien',
                '--yell'  => true,
            )
        );

        $this->assertRegExp('/.../', $commandTester->getDisplay());

        // ...
    }
}
    

Note

In the specific case above, the name parameter and the --yell option are not mandatory for the command to work, but are shown so you can see how to customize them when calling the command.

To be able to use the fully set up service container for your console tests you can extend your test from WebTestCase:

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        use Symfony\Component\Console\Tester\CommandTester;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Console\Application;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Test\WebTestCase;
use Acme\DemoBundle\Command\GreetCommand;

class ListCommandTest extends WebTestCase
{
    public function testExecute()
    {
        $kernel = $this->createKernel();
        $kernel->boot();

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

        $command = $application->find('demo:greet');
        $commandTester = new CommandTester($command);
        $commandTester->execute(
            array(
                'command' => $command->getName(),
                'name'    => 'Fabien',
                '--yell'  => true,
            )
        );

        $this->assertRegExp('/.../', $commandTester->getDisplay());

        // ...
    }
}
    

This work, including the code samples, is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license.