The WordPress Plugin Review team released Plugin Check. They use it to scan all plugin submissions to wordpress.org, and encourage all authors to run it before uploading plugins to the directory.

PLUGIN_CHECK_PHP_BIN Error Message

One error asks us to create a constant:

Cannot find the PHP Binary file, please define it using the `PLUGIN_CHECK_PHP_BIN` constant

It’s asking for the path to PHP so it can scan plugin code. Here is some PHP code to create the constant with a sample value of “path/to/php”.

if ( ! defined( 'PLUGIN_CHECK_PHP_BIN' ) ) {
	define( 'PLUGIN_CHECK_PHP_BIN', 'path/to/php' );
}

How to Find the Path

In your local environment or while logged into a remote server, use the whereis php command to reveal the path to the PHP binary. In this example from my computer, the path is not the only text output by the command:

$ whereis php
php: /opt/homebrew/opt/[email protected]/bin/php /opt/homebrew/share/man/man1/php.1

Where to Run the Command

If you’re on macOS, open Terminal, type or paste the whereis php command, and press Enter.

Define the Constant in wp-config.php

The path is very likely to end in bin/php. Here’s what I added to wp-config.php files running on my computer:

if ( ! defined( 'PLUGIN_CHECK_PHP_BIN' ) ) {
	define( 'PLUGIN_CHECK_PHP_BIN', '/opt/homebrew/opt/[email protected]/bin/php' );
}

Run the Plugin Check again. If you successfully created the constant with the correct path, your Plugin Check report may be a bit longer.