In addition to the commands provided with Artisan, you may also build your own custom commands for working with your application. You may store your custom commands in the app/commands
directory; however, you are free to choose your own storage location as long as your commands can be autoloaded based on your composer.json
settings.
To create a new command, you may use the command:make
Artisan command, which will generate a command stub to help you get started:
Generate A New Command Class
php artisan command:make FooCommand
By default, generated commands will be stored in the app/commands
directory; however, you may specify custom path or namespace:
php artisan command:make FooCommand --path="app/classes" --namespace="Classes"
Once your command is generated, you should fill out the name
and description
properties of the class, which will be used when displaying your command on the list
screen.
The fire
method will be called when your command is executed. You may place any command logic in this method.
The getArguments
and getOptions
methods are where you may define any arguments or options your command receives. Both of these methods return an array of commands, which are described by a list of array options.
When defining arguments
, the array definition values represent the following:
array($name, $mode, $description, $defaultValue)
The argument mode
may be any of the following: InputArgument::REQUIRED
or InputArgument::OPTIONAL
.
When defining options
, the array definition values represent the following:
array($name, $shortcut, $mode, $description, $defaultValue)
For options, the argument mode
may be: InputOption::VALUE_REQUIRED
, InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL
, InputOption::VALUE_IS_ARRAY
, InputOption::VALUE_NONE
.
The VALUE_IS_ARRAY
mode indicates that the switch may be used multiple times when calling the command:
php artisan foo --option=bar --option=baz
The VALUE_NONE
option indicates that the option is simply used as a "switch":
php artisan foo --option
While your command is executing, you will obviously need to access the values for the arguments and options accepted by your application. To do so, you may use the argument
and option
methods:
Retrieving The Value Of A Command Argument
$value = $this->argument('name');
Retrieving All Arguments
$arguments = $this->argument();
Retrieving The Value Of A Command Option
$value = $this->option('name');
Retrieving All Options
$options = $this->option();
To send output to the console, you may use the info
, comment
, question
and error
methods. Each of these methods will use the appropriate ANSI colors for their purpose.
Sending Information To The Console
$this->info('Display this on the screen');
Sending An Error Message To The Console
$this->error('Something went wrong!');
You may also use the ask
and confirm
methods to prompt the user for input:
Asking The User For Input
$name = $this->ask('What is your name?');
Asking The User For Secret Input
$password = $this->secret('What is the password?');
Asking The User For Confirmation
if ($this->confirm('Do you wish to continue? [yes|no]'))
{
//
}
You may also specify a default value to the confirm
method, which should be true
or false
:
$this->confirm($question, true);
Once your command is finished, you need to register it with Artisan so it will be available for use. This is typically done in the app/start/artisan.php
file. Within this file, you may use the Artisan::add
method to register the command:
Registering An Artisan Command
Artisan::add(new CustomCommand);
If your command is registered in the application IoC container, you may use the Artisan::resolve
method to make it available to Artisan:
Registering A Command That Is In The IoC Container
Artisan::resolve('binding.name');
Sometimes you may wish to call other commands from your command. You may do so using the call
method:
Calling Another Command
$this->call('command.name', array('argument' => 'foo', '--option' => 'bar'));