Symfony Console - Overwrite default options

Question

I'm building a CLI application for my app using Symfony Console. The application is required to do some simple package management operations to manage plugins. Therefore, I need a command option named --version with shortcut -v, which does not seem to be possible since --version is reserved for the application version and -v is reserved for the default verbosity setting.
How can I either disable the default options or overwrite them for this subcommand?

The error popping up states

[Symfony\Component\Console\Exception\LogicException] An option named "version" already exists.

Answer 1

So, here is a solution that works, but I don't recommend it. I recommend you simply use --package-version or some other sort of option for your command, because this requires a lot of extra work and doesn't play well for future Symfony updates.

The first thing you can do is copy the console command in your bin/ directory to a new command, and change the use statement to your own extended Application:

bin/alt_console:

// use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Console\Application;
use AppBundle\Console\Application;

Then create a new Application class that extends the existing Symfony Application, that looks like this:

Application:

namespace AppBundle\Console;

use AppBundle\Command\YourCommand;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Application;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Event\ConsoleErrorEvent;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\ArrayInput;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputDefinition;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;

class TestApplication extends Application
{
    const NAME = 'Alternative Application';
    const VERSION = '1.0';

    // these are normally private, but must now be protected as they exist in doRun()
    protected $command;
    protected $defaultCommand;
    protected $dispatcher;
    protected $runningCommand;

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct(static::NAME, static::VERSION);

        // manually add the commands you want to be handled by this
        $this->add(new YourCommand());
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function doRun(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
    {
        /* remove these lines
        if (true === $input->hasParameterOption(array('--version', '-V'), true)) {
            $output->writeln($this->getLongVersion());

            return 0;
        }
        */

        // copy the rest of the doRun() function as it 
        // exists in the base Application class
        // ...
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     *
     * Return everything from the default input definition except the 'version' option
     */
    protected function getDefaultInputDefinition()
    {
        $definition  = [];

        $defaultDefinition = parent::getDefaultInputDefinition();

        foreach ($defaultDefinition->getOptions() as $option) {
            if ($option->getName() !== 'version') {
                $definition[] = $option;
            }
        }

        foreach ($defaultDefinition->getArguments() as $argument) {
            $definition[] = $argument;
        }

        return new InputDefinition($definition);
    }
}

Now add your application with your own --version option:

namespace AppBundle\Command;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Command\ContainerAwareCommand;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputOption;
use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\OutputInterface;

class YourCommand extends ContainerAwareCommand
{
    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    protected function configure()
    {
        $this
            ->setName('your:command')
            ->addOption('--version', '-V', InputOption::VALUE_NONE, 'okay')
        ;
    }

    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    protected function execute(InputInterface $input, OutputInterface $output)
    {
        if ($input->hasOption('version')) {
            // do something
        }
    }
}

Then you can call your command via:

php bin/console your:command
php bin/console your:comand --version

Note that I do NOT recommend this. This is a lot of extra work for almost no gain at all other than saving yourself a few keystrokes with a different option now. Plus if bin/console or Symfony\Component\Console\Application changes in the future, or you'll have to manually update those files since you overrode them.