Ok scratch the above, I have found the problem

you need quotes not double qoutes or else you get an error with the #!/usr/bin/php part of it due to the "!" I guess.

here is an example

[david@zeus david]$ echo file1 > 1.php

[david@zeus david]$ echo file2 > 2.php

[david@zeus david]$ echo file3 > 3.php

[david@zeus david]$ cat prepend
#!/bin/sh
for file in `ls $2`
do
mv $file tmp
echo $1 > $file
cat tmp >> $file
rm tmp
done

[david@zeus david]$ cat *.php
file1
file2
file3

[david@zeus david]$ sh ./prepend "#!/usr/bin/php" "*.php"
bash: !/usr/bin/php": event not found

[david@zeus david]$ sh ./prepend '#!/usr/bin/php' '*.php'

[david@zeus david]$ cat *.php
#!/usr/bin/php
file1
#!/usr/bin/php
file2
#!/usr/bin/php
file3

you might like to use Perl.
All on one single line, it looks like

for i in *.php;do perl -pi -e '$_="\#\!\/usr\/bin\/php\n$_" if $. == 1' $i ;done

ie for all the first lines in all php files replace this first line by what you want

Just an addition, if you do not like Perl, maybe you can stay with Bash

for i in *.php;do (tac $i ;echo '#!/usr/bin/php')>toto;tac toto >$i; done

Of course in the end you are left with a temp file toto you'll have to remove (which is not the case via Perl

No temporary files, one line in bash:

Hot damn! I got it to work! Just so you folks know, there were no files with spaces in their names. Initially, I did copy and paste your script, but couldn't get it to work. I added the "#!/usr/bin/php" in double quotes in place of $1 out of desperation. I went back and changed those to single quotes and it worked. But I still had to hard-code the values. It was still choking on the first argument before I did that.
Thanks. I very much appreciate your help. Mighty neighborly.

cool


you gotta love allthe possibilities