How to output info text from class method invoked via artisan command in Laravel 4

Question

I have a couple of classes (services) which I use in the main Laravel app as well as via artisan commands.

What I would like to do is being able to display some output when invoking such class methods via artisan (as $this->info(...) inside the command itself) and just eventually return a value (response, result object or similar) when using them within the main app.

Right now I just used them as commands and achieved the output effect by echo ing the statements I needed directly from within the methods, but I'm convinced this is not the correct approach because as soon as I start using them in the app I guess I'm gonna have my responses polluted with these info statements (as well as double headers or similar issues, I imagine).

I wonder what would be a better way to approach such scenario.

Below a code example of what I'm trying to achieve:

// DoSequenceCommand

public function fire() {
    MyClass::doSequence();
}

// MyClass (Facade)

public function doSequence() {
    echo "Beginning Step 1\n"; // THIS I WOULD BE ABLE TO OUTPUT ONLY IF EXECUTED VIA COMMAND LINE
    $s1 = $this->step1();
    echo  "Step 1 " . ( $s1 ? "succeded" : "failed" ) . "!\n";

    echo "Beginning Step 2\n";
    $s2 = $this->step2();
    echo  "Step 2 " . ( $s2 ? "succeded" : "failed" ) . "!\n";

    return [ "s1" => $s1, "s2" => $s2];
}

Answer 1

You could either:

• pass a flag into doSequence() to determine if it should output info statements
• fire events in doSequenence() and listen for them in your command to output info from there
• break out the sequence into multiple functions, and call them independently in your command, along with your info statements

The events option might be the cleanest way.