phpdiscover

phpdiscover is a zero-dependency Go package that finds all PHP binaries installed on the current machine. Every candidate is collected, verified and deduplicated.

Usage

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"github.com/shyim/go-php-discover"
)

func main() {
	phps := phpdiscover.Discover(context.Background())

	for _, p := range phps {
		fmt.Printf("PHP %s at %s (%s)\n", p.Version, p.Path, p.Source)
	}
}

Result helpers:

system := phpdiscover.Default(phps)      // first $PATH binary, else newest
latest := phpdiscover.Latest(phps)       // newest version
php82  := phpdiscover.FindVersion(phps, "8.2") // newest matching "8", "8.2" or "8.2.3"
phpdiscover.Sort(phps)                   // ascending by version

Options:

phpdiscover.Discover(ctx,
	phpdiscover.WithTimeout(2*time.Second), // per-binary probe timeout (default 5s)
	phpdiscover.WithConcurrency(8),         // parallel probes (default 4)
	phpdiscover.WithLogger(log.Printf),     // progress messages
	phpdiscover.WithExtraDirs("/opt/my-php"),          // scan extra directories
	phpdiscover.WithSources(phpdiscover.SourcePath),   // only use $PATH
	phpdiscover.WithoutSource(phpdiscover.SourceNix),  // skip one source
)

How discovery works

Candidates come from four places:

1. $PATH — every directory in $PATH is scanned for php, php8, php8.2, php8.2.3, php-cli, ... The first PHP found in $PATH is marked IsSystem.
2. Known hoster locations — well-known locations used by hosting providers (/opt/plesk/php/*/bin/php, /opt/alt/php*/usr/bin/php, /usr/local/phpfarm/..., MAMP, ...). The {major}, {minor}, {release} placeholders are turned into glob patterns so that every installed version is matched.
3. Well-known installation directories — /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, XAMPP, phpbrew, phpenv, Herd-lite, Homebrew (brew --cellar), Nix (builtins.storeDir), asdf-vm, Remi's RPM repo, and on macOS MAMP, MacPorts and Liip PHP; on Windows XAMPP, Cygwin, Chocolatey, WAMP, MAMP and Herd.
4. Extra directories — supplied via WithExtraDirs.

Every candidate is verified by running php --version (with a timeout, in parallel) and parsing the PHP X.Y.Z version from its output. Results are deduplicated by the resolved (real) path, so symlinks like /usr/local/bin/php -> ../Cellar/php/8.5.9/bin/php collapse into a single entry. Sibling binaries of the same installation are attached when present:

p.FPMPath       // php-fpm
p.CGIPath       // php-cgi
p.PHPConfigPath // php-config
p.PHPizePath    // phpize
p.PHPdbgPath    // phpdbg

Example output

$ go run ./cmd/phpdiscover
PHP 8.3.33
  path:    /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php@8.3/8.3.33/bin/php
  source:  homebrew
  fpm:     /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php@8.3/8.3.33/sbin/php-fpm
  cgi:     /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php@8.3/8.3.33/bin/php-cgi
  config:  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php@8.3/8.3.33/bin/php-config
  phpize:  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php@8.3/8.3.33/bin/phpize
  phpdbg:  /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php@8.3/8.3.33/bin/phpdbg
PHP 8.4.24
  ...
PHP 8.5.9 (system)
  path:    /opt/homebrew/Cellar/php/8.5.9/bin/php
  via:     /opt/homebrew/bin/php
  source:  PATH
  ...

Design

• Returns all binaries instead of a single "best" one and works without a running PHP (no PHP_BINARY-relative lookups).
• Zero external dependencies.
• Symlinks are resolved and deduplicated; sibling server binaries are attached to each version.
• No disk cache: every call does a fresh, fast discovery.

Development

Linting

The project uses golangci-lint (v2) with all linters enabled except five, each with a documented reason in .golangci.yml:

• wsl / gomodguard — deprecated, superseded by the enabled wsl_v5 / gomodguard_v2
• forbidigo — its default rules forbid fmt.Print*, which the CLI legitimately uses
• testpackage — the unit tests exercise unexported helpers
• varnamelen — idiomatic short names (p, v, i, ok) in small scopes

golangci-lint run ./...        # lint everything

golangci-lint fmt              # apply gofumpt + goimports

Note: wsl_v5 and nlreturn enforce an airy whitespace style (blank lines between unrelated statements, before return/break/continue). Keep new code consistent with it, or drop those linters from disable: if you dislike the style.

Publishing

The module lives at github.com/shyim/go-php-discover (private). If you later publish it publicly or move it to another account, run:

go mod edit -module github.com/<owner>/go-php-discover

update the import path in cmd/phpdiscover/main.go and the depguard allowlist in .golangci.yml, and adjust the CI badge URL at the top of this README to match the new repository.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.