Interacting with console applications

The console is the third application installed by default with the advanced template.

This app is configured to launch commands through a console access, and it has the same application structure of those already seen in the previous chapters. Therefore, in this section, we require a console access to the host.

Compared to the web and API applications used until now, there are some differences.

The public properties of a controller, in fact, are visible from the command line as option. It is required to extend the option() method of the controller to make those properties available. Also, based on specific action, action parameters are passed as arguments of the command line.

Finally, a console controller action can return an exit code, a number where 0 indicates that everything is OK, a best practice for console application development.

Here is a typical usage of the console application starting from a shell:

yii <route> [--option1=value1 --option2...