Simple development server for running PHP projects without having to configure a web application server (nginx, apache, etc)

dev_server.php

<?php
//
// Development server.
//
// Requires PHP 5.4+, with built-in web-server feature:
// http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php
//
// Run it through console via:
// $ php -S localhost:8000 ./dev_server.php
//
$root_path = getcwd() . '/';

if (file_exists($root_path . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
    if (preg_match('/\.php$/', $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) {
        require($root_path . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);

    } else {
        return false;
    }

} else {
    require('index.php');
}