php cli custom ini not loading

A script is called from command line using :

/fullpath/php -q -c /fullpath/php.ini /fullpath/script.php

I want it to use the normal php.ini and not the one for cli, but the -c flag is not working.

What could cause this ?

You can check which configuration files are actually loaded with the --ini switch.

Here's what my normal configuration looks like:

krakjoe@fiji:/usr/src/php-src$ php --ini

Yields:

Configuration File (php.ini) Path: /etc
Loaded Configuration File:         /etc/php-cli.ini
Scan for additional .ini files in: /etc/php.d
Additional .ini files parsed:      /etc/php.d/apcu.ini,
/etc/php.d/auto.ini,
/etc/php.d/autostrict.ini,
/etc/php.d/ds.ini,
/etc/php.d/inspector.ini,
/etc/php.d/memcached.ini,
/etc/php.d/mongodb.ini,
/etc/php.d/mysql.ini,
/etc/php.d/opcache.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo.ini,
/etc/php.d/uopz.ini,
/etc/php.d/xdebug.ini,
/etc/php.d/yaml.ini

Note that, it loads php-cli.ini, because it exists and we are in cli.

If we do this:

krakjoe@fiji:/usr/src/php-src$ php -c php.ini-development --ini

We get:

Configuration File (php.ini) Path: /etc
Loaded Configuration File:         /usr/src/php-src/php.ini-development
Scan for additional .ini files in: /etc/php.d
Additional .ini files parsed:      /etc/php.d/apcu.ini,
/etc/php.d/auto.ini,
/etc/php.d/autostrict.ini,
/etc/php.d/ds.ini,
/etc/php.d/inspector.ini,
/etc/php.d/memcached.ini,
/etc/php.d/mongodb.ini,
/etc/php.d/mysql.ini,
/etc/php.d/opcache.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo.ini,
/etc/php.d/uopz.ini,
/etc/php.d/xdebug.ini,
/etc/php.d/yaml.ini

This time php-cli.ini was not loaded, the specified one was, but so were all the files in scan dir too.

Finally, if we do this:

krakjoe@fiji:/usr/src/php-src$ php -c php.ini-development -n --ini

We get:

Configuration File (php.ini) Path: /etc
Loaded Configuration File:         /usr/src/php-src/php.ini-development
Scan for additional .ini files in: (none)
Additional .ini files parsed:      (none)

So, adding the additional switch -n, stops PHP from using the scan directory configuration.