Console Prompts

In addition to the console abstraction layer, zend-console provides numerous convenience classes for interacting with the user in a console environment. This chapter describes available Zend\Console\Prompt classes and their usage.

All prompts can be instantiated directly, and expose a show() method.

use Zend\Console\Prompt;

$confirm = new Prompt\Confirm('Are you sure you want to continue?');
$result = $confirm->show();
if ($result) {
    // the user chose to continue
}

You can also use prompts statically, via the static prompt() method:

use Zend\Console\Prompt;

$result = Prompt\Confirm::prompt('Are you sure you want to continue?');
if ($result) {
    // the user chose to continue
}

Both of above examples will display something like this:

Confirm

This prompt is best used for yes / no prompts.

Confirm(string $text, string $yesChar = 'y', string $noChar = 'n') : bool

Example usage:

use Zend\Console\Prompt\Confirm;

if ( Confirm::prompt('Is this the correct answer? [y/n]', 'y', 'n')) {
    $console->write("You chose YES");
} else {
    $console->write("You chose NO");
}

Line

This prompt asks for a line of text input.

Line(
    string $text = 'Please enter value',
    bool $allowEmpty = false,
    bool $maxLength = 2048
) : string

Example usage:

use Zend\Console\Prompt\Line;

$name = Line::prompt(
    'What is your name?',
    false,
    100
);

$console->write("Good day to you $name!");

Char

This prompt reads a single keystroke, and optionally validates it against a list of allowed characters.

Char(
    string $text = 'Please hit a key',
    string $allowedChars = 'abc',
    bool $ignoreCase = true,
    bool $allowEmpty = false,
    bool $echo = true
) : string

Example usage:

use Zend\Console\Prompt\Char;

$answer = Char::prompt(
    'What is the correct answer? [a,b,c,d,e]',
    'abcde',
    true,
    false,
    true
);

if ($answer == 'b') {
    $console->write('Correct. This is the right answer.');
} else {
    $console->write('Wrong! Try again.');
}

Select

This prompt displays a number of choices, and asks the user to pick one.

Select(
    string $text = 'Please select one option',
    array $options = [],
    bool $allowEmpty = false,
    bool $echo = false
) : string

Example usage:

$options = [
    'a' => 'Apples',
    'o' => 'Oranges',
    'p' => 'Pears',
    'b' => 'Bananas',
    'n' => 'none of the above...',
];

$answer = Select::prompt(
    'Which fruit do you like the best?',
    $options,
    false,
    false
);

$console->write("You told me that you like " . $options[$answer]);

Password

This prompt reads in a string, without echoing that string back to the console; the most common use case is password prompts, which gives it its name.

Password(
    string $promptText = 'Password : ',
    boolean $echo = true
) : string

Example usage:

use Zend\Console\Prompt\Password;

$password = Password::prompt('Enter the secret', true);

$console->write("Sh!, the password is $password");