How to use the PHP interactive shell

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) 64 bit, and I want to use the PHP interactive shell:

php -a

But it doesn't seem to work very well, and a lot of syntax is incorrectly interpreted.

When I run php -a, it displays:

interactive mode enabled

And just a cursor blinking.

I'm using: PHP 5.4.13-2~precise+1 (cli) (built: Mar 21 2013 12:17:18)

How do I use the PHP interactive shell?

Solution

Try installing phpsh. It is probably the easiest solution.

Steps (assuming dependencies are installed):