How to change the path to php.ini in PHP CLI version

Question

The php that run on the webserver and the CLI version is not using the same php.ini file. If I do a command php --ini, it show this

Configuration File (php.ini) Path: C:\Windows
Loaded Configuration File:         C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.3.8\php.ini
Scan for additional .ini files in: (none)
Additional .ini files parsed:      (none)

while my web version uses the php.ini in C:\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.2.21\bin\php.ini. This is probably very common for people using wamp.

How do I change the Loaded Configuration File to read from C:\wamp\bin\apache\Apache2.2.21\bin\php.ini so I don't have to maintain 2 different php.ini versions?

Answer 1

Per http://php.net/configuration.file:

php.ini is searched for in these locations (in order):

• SAPI module specific location (PHPIniDir directive in Apache 2, -c command line option in CGI and CLI, php_ini parameter in NSAPI, PHP_INI_PATH environment variable in THTTPD)
• The PHPRC environment variable. Before PHP 5.2.0, this was checked after the registry key mentioned below.
• As of PHP 5.2.0, the location of the php.ini file can be set for different versions of PHP. The following registry keys are examined in order:
  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\x.y.z], [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\x.y] and [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\x], where x, y and z mean the PHP major, minor and release versions. If there is a value for IniFilePath in any of these keys, the first one found will be used as the location of the php.ini (Windows only).
  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP], value of IniFilePath (Windows only).
• Current working directory (except CLI).
• The web server's directory (for SAPI modules), or directory of PHP (otherwise in Windows).
• Windows directory (C:\windows or C:\winnt) (for Windows), or --with-config-file-path compile time option.

For CLI, your best bet is probably either to set the $PHPRC environment variable for the account that will be executing scripts, or recompile PHP with a different --with-config-file-path configuration setting.

You can also override the php.ini search dir on a per-execution basis by specifying the -c option when invoking PHP:

> php --help
Usage: php [options] [-f]  [--] [args...]
...
  -c | Look for php.ini file in this directory