Running different PHP CLI version depending on working path

Question

I set up PHP-FPM to have different versions of PHP for different folders. This was necessary due to legacy code and was achieved using the apache's .htaccess.

My question is: does anyone have a simple elegant way to do this in CLI? I was thinking maybe have a file in the folder indicating the desired version of PHP to run, but unsure of how to go about it.

My expected result is that when I run php ... in folder A, it runs with PHP 7.4 and when I do the same php ... in folder B, it runs with PHP 8.1

Thank you.

Answer 1

Assuming your PHP versions are installed in different paths, e.g.:

• php 7.4 is in /usr/local/php74/bin
• php 8.1 is in /usr/local/php81/bin
• etc

Create a script php that looks for a .phppath file in each directory that describes which php binary to use. Something like:

#!/bin/sh

# This sets the default if not otherwise specified
phppath=/usr/local/php81/bin/php

if [ -f .phppath ]; then
  phppath=$(cat .phppath)
fi


exec $phppath "$@"

Put this in your $PATH somewhere and you should be all set. In directories where you want, say, PHP 7.4, create an appropriate .phppath file:

echo /usr/local/php74/bin/php > .phppath

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Note that as written, this only finds .phppath in the current directory. It won't find it if you're working in a subdirectory. That's a solvable problem, but it's left as an exercise to the reader.