---
title: Don't Bootstrap Drupal, Use Drush
date: 2013-11-19
excerpt:
  Avoid bootstrapping Drupal manually in your scratch files - Drush has you
  covered!
tags:
  - drush
  - drupal-planet
  - php
---

There are times when doing Drupal development when you need to run a custom PHP
script, maybe moving data from one field to another, that doesn't warrant the
time and effort to create a custom module. In this scenario, it would be quicker
to write a .php script and bootstrap Drupal to gain access to functions like
`node_load()` and `db_query()`.

To bootstrap Drupal, you would need to add some additional lines of code to the
stop of your script. Here is an alternative way.

```language-php
<?php

// Bootstrap Drupal.
$drupal_path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'];
define('DRUPAL_ROOT', $drupal_path);
require_once DRUPAL_ROOT . '/includes/bootstrap.inc';
drupal_bootstrap(DRUPAL_BOOTSTRAP_FULL);

// Do stuff.
$node = node_load(1);
```

The script would need be placed in the root of your Drupal directory, and you
would then have had to open a browser window and visit
http://example.com/foo.php to execute it. This is where the "drush php-script"
command (or "drush scr" for short) is useful, and can be used to execute the
script from the command line.

```language-bash
$ drush scr foo.php
```

It also means that I no longer need to manually bootstrap Drupal, so my script
is much cleaner.

```language-php
// Just do stuff.
$node = node_load(1);
```

I prefer to keep these scripts outside of my Drupal directory in a separate
"scripts" directory (with Drupal in a "drupal" directory on the same level).
This makes it easier to update Drupal as I don't need to worry about
accidentally deleting the additional files. From within the drupal directory, I
can now run the following command to go up one level, into the scripts directory
and then execute the script. Note that you do not need to include the file
extension.

```language-bash
$ drush scr ../scripts/foo
```

Or, if you're using
[Drush aliases](http://deeson-online.co.uk/labs/drupal-drush-aliases-and-how-use-them 'Drupal, Drush aliases, and how to use them'):

```language-bash
$ drush @mysite.local scr foo
```

If you commonly use the same scripts for different projects, you could also
store these within a separate Git repository and checkout the scripts directory
using a
[Git submodule](http://git-scm.com/book/en/Git-Tools-Submodules 'Git Submodules').