can you prompt for variables in command-line CGI?

for a SHELL SCRIPT using php binary: in bash I would do this: #!/bin/bash echo -n "username: " read username echo -n "password: " read password echo $username echo $password Run on the command-line, it would stop and ask me for the username and password, then continue the bash shell script. But in PHP, how would I prompt someone at the command-line for input?