Run PHP from the command line

To open an interactive php shell, just type in a terminal:

php -a

As for opening a file, just:

php filename.php

Environment variables are set in /etc/environment. You will find the $PATH variable in this file. This variable stores the path to binaries in various locations.

To add /opt/lampp/bin to the location searched for binary files, just append this path preceded by a : to the path variable.

For example, if the $PATH variable was:

/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games

add /opt/lampp/bin to the end of it, so that it becomes:

/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/opt/lampp/bin

After doing this, do a source /etc/environment.

As an alternative to /opt/lampp/bin/php, to run a php script from the command line, you just need to install php5-cli:

sudo apt-get install php5-cli

And run your script with:

php myscript.php

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editor's note: depending on your version, you may need to install php7.0-cli etc instead