# CodeIgniter User Guide Version 2.1.3

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# Running via the CLI

As well as calling an applications Controllers via the URL in a browser they can also be loaded via the command-line interface (CLI).

- What is the CLI?
- Why use this method?
- How does it work?

## What is the CLI?

The command-line interface is a text-based method of interacting with computers. For more information, check the Wikipedia article.

## Why run via the command-line?

There are many reasons for running CodeIgniter from the command-line, but they are not always obvious.

- Run your cron-jobs without needing to use wget or curl
- Make your cron-jobs inaccessible from being loaded in the URL by checking for `$this->input->is_cli_request()`
- Make interactive "tasks" that can do things like set permissions, prune cache folders, run backups, etc.
- Integrate with other applications in other languages. For example, a random C++ script could call one command and run code in your models!

## Let's try it: Hello World!

Let's create a simple controller so you can see it in action. Using your text editor, create a file called tools.php, and put the following code in it:

<?php class Tools extends CI_Controller { public function message($to = 'World') { echo "Hello {$to}!".PHP_EOL; } } ?>

Then save the file to your application/controllers/ folder.

Now normally you would visit the your site using a URL similar to this:

`example.com/index.php/tools/message/to`

Instead, we are going to open Terminal in Mac/Lunix or go to Run > "cmd" in Windows and navigate to our CodeIgniter project.

> $ cd /path/to/project;
> $ php index.php tools message

If you did it right, you should see `Hello World!`.

> $ php index.php tools message "John Smith"

Here we are passing it a argument in the same way that URL parameters work. "John Smith" is passed as a argument and output is: `Hello John Smith!`.

## That's it!

That, in a nutshell, is all there is to know about controllers on the command line. Remember that this is just a normal controller, so routing and _remap works fine.