Console commands

The built-in bin/magento tool plays a major role – not just in Magento development, but in production deployments as well.

Right out of the box, it provides a dozen commands that we can use to manage caches, indexers, dependency compilation, deploying static view files, creating CSS from LESS, putting our store to maintenance, installing modules, and more.

Quite easily, Magento enables us to add our own commands to its Symfony-like command-line interface (CLI). The Magento CLI essentially extends from Symfony\Component\Console\Command.

The real value in creating our own command lies in the arguments and options that we can make available, thus passing dynamic information to the command.

Magento console commands reside under the <ModuleName>/Console directory, which can further be organized to better accommodate our commands. Magento mostly uses the <ModuleName>/Console/Command directory to place the actual CLI command class, whereas various options and other accompanying classes reside in the <ModuleName>/Console directory.

Conceptually, creating a new CLI command is as easy as doing the following:

1. Creating the command class
2. Wiring it up via di.xml
3. Clearing the cache and compiled directories

Let's create our own simple console command. We will start off by creating the <MAGELICIOUS_DIR>/Core/Console/Command/RunStockImportCommand.php file with the following content:

use Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputArgument;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputOption;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;

class RunStockImportCommand extends Command {
    const ORDER_ID_ARGUMENT = 'order_id';
    const DAYS_BACK_OPTION = 'days_back';

    protected function configure() {
        $this->setName('magelicious:stock:import')
            ->setDescription('The Magelicious Stock Import.')
            ->setDefinition([
                new InputArgument(
                    self::ORDER_ID_ARGUMENT, /* name */
                    InputArgument::REQUIRED, /* mode REQUIRED or OPTIONAL */
                    'The argument to set.', /* description */
                    null /* default */
                ),
                new InputOption(
                    self::DAYS_BACK_OPTION, /* name */
                    null, /* shortcut */
                    InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL, /* VALUE_NONE or VALUE_REQUIRED or VALUE_OPTIONAL or VALUE_IS_ARRAY */
                    'The option to set.' /* description */
                )
            ]);
        parent::configure();
    }

    protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output) {
        try {
            $output->setDecorated(true);
            // $input->getArgument(self::ORDER_ID_ARGUMENT);
            // $input->getOption(self::DAYS_BACK_OPTION);
            // green text
            $output->writeln('<info>The info message.</info>');
            // yellow text
            $output->writeln('<comment>The comment message.</comment>');
            // black text on a cyan background
            $output->writeln('<question>The question message.</question>');
            return \Magento\Framework\Console\Cli::RETURN_SUCCESS;
        } catch (\Exception $e) {
            // white text on a red background
            $output->writeln('<error>' . $e->getMessage() . '</error>');
            if ($output->getVerbosity() >= OutputInterface::VERBOSITY_VERBOSE) {
                $output->writeln($e->getTraceAsString());
            }
            return \Magento\Framework\Console\Cli::RETURN_FAILURE;
        }
    }
}

We then wire it up via <MAGELICIOUS_DIR>/etc/di.xml, as follows:

<type name="Magento\Framework\Console\CommandListInterface">
    <arguments>
        <argument name="commands" xsi:type="array">
            <item name="runStockImport" xsi:type="object">Magelicious\Core\Console\Command\RunStockImportCommand</item>
        </argument>
    </arguments>
</type>

We can now clear the cache and the compiled directories either by running the php bin/magento cache:clean config followed by php bin/magento setup:di:compile, or by running rm -rf generated/* and rm -rf var/cache/*.

Now, if we run the php bin/magento command, we should see our command on the list:

magelicious
  magelicious:stock:import The Magelicious Stock Import.

If we now test our method by running php bin/magento magelicious:stock:import, this should immediately trigger an error, as follows:

[Symfony\Component\Console\Exception\RuntimeException] 
Not enough arguments (missing: "order_id"). 
 
magelicious:stock:import [--days_back [DAYS_BACK]] [--] <order_id>

Either of the following calls should work:

php bin/magento magelicious:stock:import 000000060
php bin/magento magelicious:stock:import 000000060 --days_back=7