PHP-watcher helps develop long-running PHP applications by automatically restarting them when file changes in the directory are detected.
Here's how it looks like:
PHP-watcher does not require any additional changes to your code or method of
development. php-watcher is a replacement wrapper for php, to use PHP
-watcher replace the word php in the command line when executing your script.
Table of contents
- Installation
- Usage
- Config files
- Monitoring multiple directories
- Specifying extension watch list
- Ignoring files
- Delaying restarting
- Default executable
- Gracefully reloading down your script
- Automatic restart
- Spinner
You can install this package globally like this:
composer global require seregazhuk/php-watcherAfter that phpunit-watcher watch can be run in any directory on your system.
Alternatively, you can install the package locally as a dev dependency in your project:
composer require seregazhuk/php-watcher --devLocally installed you can run it with vendor/bin/php-watcher.
All the examples assume you've installed the package globally. If you opted for the local installation prepend vendor/bin/ everywhere where php-watcher is mentioned.
PHP-watcher wraps your application, so you can pass all the arguments you would normally pass to your app:
php-watcher [your php app]Using PHP-Watcher is simple. If your application accepts a host and port as the
arguments, I can start it using option --arguments:
php-watcher server.php --arguments localhost --arguments 8080Any output from this script is prefixed with [php-watcher], otherwise all
output from your application, errors included, will be echoed out as expected.
PHP-Watcher supports customization of its behavior with config files. The
file for options may be named .php-watcher.yml, php-watcher.yml or php-watcher.yml.dist.
The tool will look for a file in the current working directory in that order.
An alternative local configuration file can be specified with the --config <file> option.
The specificity is as follows, so that a command line argument will always override the config file settings:
- command line arguments
- local config
A config file can take any of the command line arguments, for example:
watch:
- src
- config
extensions:
- php
- yml
ignore:
- testsBy default, PHP-Watcher monitors the current working directory. If you want to
take control of that option, use the --watch option to add specific paths:
php-watcher --watch src --watch config server.phpNow PHP-Watcher will only restart if there are changes in the ./src or
./config directories. By default traverses sub-directories, so there's no
need to explicitly include them.
By default, PHP-Watcher looks for files with the .php extension. If you use
the --ext option and monitor app,yml PHP-Watcher will monitor files with
the extension of .php and .yml:
php-watcher server.php --ext=php,ymlNow PHP-Watcher will restart on any changes to files in the directory (or
subdirectories) with the extensions .php, .yml.
By default, PHP-Watcher will only restart when a .php file changes. In
some cases you may want to ignore some specific files, directories or file
patterns, to prevent PHP-Watcher from prematurely restarting your application.
This can be done via the command line:
php-watcher server.php --ignore public/ --ignore tests/Or specific files can be ignored:
php-watcher server.php --ignore src/config.phpPatterns can also be ignored (but be sure to quote the arguments):
php-watcher server.php --ignore 'src/config/*.php'Note that by default, PHP-Watcher ignores all dot and VCS files.
In some situations, you may want to wait until a number of files have changed . The timeout before checking for new file changes is 1 second. If you're uploading a number of files and it's taking some number of seconds, this could cause your app to restart multiple times unnecessarily.
To add an extra throttle, or delay restarting, use the --delay option:
php-watcher server.php --delay 10 For more precision, use a float:
php-watcher server.php --delay 2.5 By default, PHP-Watcher uses php bin executable to run your scripts. If you
want to provide your own executable use --exec option or executable param in config file. This is particularly useful if you're working with
several PHP versions.
executable: phpor using CLI:
php-watcher server.php --exec php7PHP-Watcher can also be used to execute and monitor other non-php programs. For example, you can use PHP-Watcher to listen to *.js files and use node executable to run them:
php-watcher server.js --exec node --watch app --ext=jsThe command above uses NodeJS to start server.js and then listens to changes in app directory.
It is possible to have PHP-watcher send any signal that you specify to your application.
php-watcher --signal SIGTERM server.phpYour application can handle the signal as follows:
declare(ticks = 1);
pcntl_signal(SIGTERM, 'terminationHandler');
function terminationHandler()
{
// ...
}By default PHP-watcher sends SIGINT signal.
PHP-watcher was originally written to restart long-running processes such as web servers, but it also supports apps that cleanly exit. If your script exits cleanly, the watcher will continue to monitor the directory (or directories) and restart the script if there are any changes. If the script crashes PHP-watcher will notify you about that.
By default the watcher outputs a nice spinner which indicates that the process is running and watching your files. But if your system doesn't support ansi coded the watcher will try to detect it and disable the spinner. Or you can always disable the spinner manually with option '--no-spinner':
php-watcher server.php --no-spinnerMIT http://rem.mit-license.org
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