In this new post Maarten Balliauw looks at a "hidden gem" in the Windows Azure SDK for PHP - the ability to create scripts to work with command-line scripts - the Microsoft_Console_Command class.

Usually when creating a command line script you would parse $_SERVER['argv'], validate values and check whether required switches are available or not. With the Microsoft_Console_Command class from the Windows Azure SDK for PHP, you can ease up this task. Let’s compare writing a simple "hello" command.

He compares the two sides of making a PHP command-line script: the "ugly way" using normal PHP code and $_SERVER['argv'] and the "easy way" using the Microsoft_Console_Command class that uses a class to define the functionality. There's also methods to grab specific arguments, pull from STDIN and get environment variables.