From db6c4af2716bdf984de450821eca75bfc134395d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Brion Vibber <brion@users.mediawiki.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 00:15:58 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] Spiff this up a bit: * output data returned by the eval;
 prints strings and numbers directly, var_dump()s arrays and objects * if no
 returned data, print a line break. This makes things easier when doing 'echo'
 and you forget to add one yourself. * Add some documentation comments

---
 maintenance/eval.php | 25 ++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/maintenance/eval.php b/maintenance/eval.php
index c53da36f90..9ef4958fbf 100755
--- a/maintenance/eval.php
+++ b/maintenance/eval.php
@@ -1,6 +1,17 @@
 <?php
 /**
- * @todo document
+ * PHP lacks an interactive mode, but this can be very helpful when debugging.
+ * This script lets a command-line user start up the wiki engine and then poke
+ * about by issuing PHP commands directly.
+ *
+ * Unlike eg Python, you need to use a 'return' statement explicitly for the
+ * interactive shell to print out the value of the expression. Multiple lines
+ * are evaluated separately, so blocks need to be input without a line break.
+ * Fatal errors such as use of undeclared functions can kill the shell.
+ *
+ * To get decent line editing behavior, you should compile PHP with support 
+ * for GNU readline (pass --with-readline to configure).
+ *
  * @package MediaWiki
  * @subpackage Maintenance
  */
@@ -10,13 +21,17 @@ require_once( "commandLine.inc" );
 
 do {
 	$line = readconsole( "> " );
-	eval( $line . ";" );
+	$val = eval( $line . ";" );
+	if( is_null( $val ) ) {
+		echo "\n";
+	} elseif( is_string( $val ) || is_numeric( $val ) ) {
+		echo "$val\n";
+	} else {
+		var_dump( $val );
+	}
 	if ( function_exists( "readline_add_history" ) ) {
 		readline_add_history( $line );
 	}
 } while ( 1 );
 
-
-
-
 ?>
-- 
2.20.1