WP-CLI - Selecting PHP version

Question

On a development server I have a co-install of PHP 5.6 & 7; nginx is configured with PHP 5.6. When I type "wp" it returns several errors and at the end of the error is a message containing the following:

Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress.

Typing wp --info returns:

PHP binary: /usr/bin/php7.0
PHP version: 7.0.10-2+deb.sury.org~precise+1
php.ini used: /etc/php/7.0/cli/php.ini
WP-CLI root dir: phar://wp-cli.phar
WP-CLI packages dir:
WP-CLI global config: /srv/www/wp-cli.yml
WP-CLI project config:
WP-CLI version: 0.26.0-alpha-5672b63

WP-CLI seems to be defaulting to PHP 7, I would prefer it to use PHP 5.6.

So I was wondering if there was an option I could add to the configuration yml file to select which PHP version to use?

If you need any further information, please let me know

Answer 1

On a system where

• you can't change the /usr/bin/php symlink
• you can't change the PATH to point to a different version (because the php executables don't reside in distinct /lib/ directories)
• WP_CLI_PHP has no effect

(like my Arch Linux with php(8), php7 installed from extra and wp-cli installed from AUR. I'm using php7 vs php8 here, but this should work for any versions.)

…a workaround may be to call the wp phar executable with php7 cli:

whereis wp
# /usr/bin/wp

php7 /usr/bin/wp cli info
# PHP binary:     /usr/bin/php7
# PHP version:    7.4.25

for convenience you can add a bash alias in your .bashrc:

alias wp-php7='php7 /usr/bin/wp'
# or override wp altogether
alias wp='php7 /usr/bin/wp'

Answer 2

Got the same problem! Just switch the php version. On my server PHP5.6 was default for apache, while CLI was configured with PHP7.1. After installing WP-CLI, with wp --info I got this result:

PHP binary: /usr/bin/php7.1
PHP version: 7.1.5-1+deb.sury.org~xenial+1
php.ini used: /etc/php/7.1/cli/php.ini
WP-CLI root dir: phar://wp-cli.phar

And when i used the wp core install command i got the error: Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL extension which is required by WordPress. The problem is just the mix between the different versions: we have just to switch completely to 5.6 or 7.1. In my case problem was solved simply by writing on the shell:

sudo update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php5.6

And then wp --info

PHP binary: /usr/bin/php5.6
PHP version: 5.6.30-10+deb.sury.org~xenial+2
php.ini used: /etc/php/5.6/cli/php.ini
WP-CLI root dir: phar://wp-cli.phar

Problem solved! WP-CLI worked like a charm.

Answer 3

You can set the php binary that WP-CLI uses by setting an environment variable in your linux shell.

export WP_CLI_PHP=/path/to/php5.6

Answer 4

Sounds like you need to change your default PHP version.

I assume php -v returns 7?

You'll need to change the PATH.

See this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31206864/use-different-php-version-cli-executable-for-one-command

Or this: https://make.wordpress.org/cli/handbook/installing/#using-a-custom-php-binary