macOS won't use the right PHP version

Question

I just updated macOS to Mojave, updated brew and reinstalled php (version 7.3, still via brew).

If I run php I get

-bash: /usr/local/opt/php@7.2/bin/php: No such file or directory

But if I do which php I get

/usr/bin/php

(that php -v reports as 7.1.23)

Makes no sense. Why does php calls a path different reported by which?
And how can I make the system use the last version rather than those wrong ones?

I tried to brew unlink php && brew link php but when I run php it still calls the version 7.2 instead of the 7.3 that I just installed.

Answer 1

In my case the issue was with the /usr/local/bin appearing in PATH environment variable after /usr/bin (reported by brew doctor).

I fixed easily adding

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

to .bash_profile (or .bashrc) in the user home directory.

Don't really like the solution since I'd like to know why /usr/bin comes before /usr/local/bin (that, in macOS, is supposed provide the chance to override the paths) in the first place.