Interactive Console (REPL)

CakePHP offers REPL(Read Eval Print Loop) plugin to let you explore some CakePHP and your application in an interactive console.

NOTE

The plugin was shipped with the CakePHP app skeleton before 4.3.

You can start the interactive console using:

bin/cake console

This will bootstrap your application and start an interactive console. At this point you can interact with your application code and execute queries using your application's models:

bin/cake console

>>> $articles = Cake\Datasource\FactoryLocator::get('Table')->get('Articles');
// object(Cake\ORM\Table)(
//
// )
>>> $articles->find()->all();

Since your application has been bootstrapped you can also test routing using the REPL:

>>> Cake\Routing\Router::parse('/articles/view/1');
// [
//   'controller' => 'Articles',
//   'action' => 'view',
//   'pass' => [
//     0 => '1'
//   ],
//   'plugin' => NULL
// ]

You can also test generating URLs:

>>> Cake\Routing\Router::url(['controller' => 'Articles', 'action' => 'edit', 99]);
// '/articles/edit/99'

To quit the REPL you can use CTRL-C or by typing exit.