Create shortcut for PHP

Question

I have XAMPP installed and my PHP is:

/opt/lampp/bin/php-5.3.8

Every time I need to execute a PHP file I need to do this:

/opt/lampp/bin/php-5.3.8 testando.php

Is there another way to execute it besides using symbolic link?

I did this on /etc/init.d/:

sudo ln -s /opt/lampp/bin/php-5.3.8 php

Why when I need to run PHP I have to do this ./php instead of just php?

And is there a way to do this without the ./? Like it was installed via apt-get?

Answer 1

You should make the link in one of the folders listed in your PATH variable. Run echo $PATH to see the list of paths. Once the link is created in one of those paths, you will no longer need to prepend ./

Answer 2

php wasn't a boot script , you should never put that in /etc/init.d

Normally you should have a symbol link named php in /opt/lampp/bin/ , which is linked to /opt/lampp/bin/php-5.3.8

(If not , do ln -s /opt/lampp/bin/php-5.3.8 /opt/lampp/bin/php to make this work)

And in your ~/.bashrc , add more path to $PATH:

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/lampp/bin/

And you execute your script like this , on any directory:

php XX.php

Answer 3

Make a symbolic link from the executable you want to execute by name to a location in your PATH.

ln -s ../../../opt/lampp/bin/php-5.3.8 /usr/local/bin/php

The default PATH does not contain the current directory, because it's uncommon to change to a directory containing an executable before executing it.

Don't mess up with system directories. /etc/init.d contains scripts that start and stop system services; this is not the place to put a link to an interpreter.