On my hostgator shared hosting, the php 5.6 executable is located at /opt/php56/bin/php
You can use ls /opt to see if the php version folders exist.
So if you want to update your php command with 7.1 you should edit your ~/.bash_profile and append the following line:
alias php=’/opt/php56/bin/php’
You might have to logout and log in again if you dont see a change.
Now, when you use php -v it should say 7.1.x if you have done it right.