Running a Zend Framework action from command line

UPDATE

You can have all this code adapted for ZF 1.12 from https://github.com/akond/zf-cli if you like.

While the solution #1 is ok, sometimes you want something more elaborate.
Especially if you are expecting to have more than just one CLI script.
If you allow me, I would propose another solution.

First of all, have in your Bootstrap.php

protected function _initRouter ()
{
    if (PHP_SAPI == 'cli')
    {
        $this->bootstrap ('frontcontroller');
        $front = $this->getResource('frontcontroller');
        $front->setRouter (new Application_Router_Cli ());
        $front->setRequest (new Zend_Controller_Request_Simple ());
    }
}

This method will deprive dispatching control from default router in favour of our own router Application_Router_Cli.

Incidentally, if you have defined your own routes in _initRoutes for your web interface, you would probably want to neutralize them when in command-line mode.

protected function _initRoutes ()
{
    $router = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance ()->getRouter ();
    if ($router instanceof Zend_Controller_Router_Rewrite)
    {
        // put your web-interface routes here, so they do not interfere
    }
}

Class Application_Router_Cli (I assume you have autoload switched on for Application prefix) may look like:

class Application_Router_Cli extends Zend_Controller_Router_Abstract
{
    public function route (Zend_Controller_Request_Abstract $dispatcher)
    {
        $getopt = new Zend_Console_Getopt (array ());
        $arguments = $getopt->getRemainingArgs ();
        if ($arguments)
        {
            $command = array_shift ($arguments);
            if (! preg_match ('~\W~', $command))
            {
                $dispatcher->setControllerName ($command);
                $dispatcher->setActionName ('cli');
                unset ($_SERVER ['argv'] [1]);

                return $dispatcher;
            }

            echo "Invalid command.\n", exit;

        }

        echo "No command given.\n", exit;
    }


    public function assemble ($userParams, $name = null, $reset = false, $encode = true)
    {
        echo "Not implemented\n", exit;
    }
}

Now you can simply run your application by executing

php index.php backup

In this case cliAction method in BackupController controller will be called.

class BackupController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
    function cliAction ()
    {
        print "I'm here.\n";
    }
}

You can even go ahead and modify Application_Router_Cli class so that not “cli” action is taken every time, but something that user have chosen through an additional parameter.

And one last thing. Define custom error handler for command-line interface so you won’t be seeing any html code on your screen

In Bootstrap.php

protected function _initError ()
{
    $error = $frontcontroller->getPlugin ('Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler');
    $error->setErrorHandlerController ('index');

    if (PHP_SAPI == 'cli')
    {
        $error->setErrorHandlerController ('error');
        $error->setErrorHandlerAction ('cli');
    }
}

In ErrorController.php

function cliAction ()
{
    $this->_helper->viewRenderer->setNoRender (true);

    foreach ($this->_getParam ('error_handler') as $error)
    {
        if ($error instanceof Exception)
        {
            print $error->getMessage () . "\n";
        }
    }
}