php / php/php-src

Finding executing script path in CLI impossible for relative filepaths after chdir - SCRIPT_FILENAME should be the absolute path in CLI too

Open
#18,234 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Feature SAPI: cli Status: Verified
Dominant language
C
Stars
40.4k
Forks
8.1k
Avg merge
2d 13h
Merged PRs (30d)
96

Description

Description

The following code:

mkdir -p /abc/def
mkdir -p /abc/xyz
cd /abc/def
php ../xyz/bar.php

/abc/xyz/bar.php

<?php
var_dump( realpath( filter_input( INPUT_SERVER, 'SCRIPT_FILENAME' ) ) );
chdir( '/tmp' );
var_dump( realpath( filter_input( INPUT_SERVER, 'SCRIPT_FILENAME' ) ) );

Resulted in this output:

string(16) "/abc/xyz/bar.php"
bool(false)

SCRIPT_FILENAME is supposed to be the

The absolute pathname of the currently executing script.

while SCRIPT_NAME is the passed path (or the path relative to DOCUMENT_ROOT ?)
https://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.server.php

The docs mention:

If a script is executed with the CLI, as a relative path, such as file.php or ../file.php, $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'] will contain the relative path specified by the user.

Isn't this a bug? Bc it states it should be an absolute path, and it's obviously not. Which means the 2 are identical in CLI.

Which leads back to my original example:
due to this inconsistency, it's impossible to find the currently executing script's path in CLI, if the path passed to PHP isn't absolute and chdir() is called anywhere in the application.
This makes finding the source of a bug from an error trace almost impossible, if there are multiple directories with this file

PHP Version

8.4

Operating System

No response

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the relative-path CLI example with PHP 8.4 and inspect how the CLI entry point sets SCRIPT_FILENAME. Verify the behavior before and after chdir('/tmp'); done means SCRIPT_FILENAME remains the absolute path of the executing script when invoked with a relative path.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
php
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.