POPEN(3) 1 POPEN(3)
popen - Opens process file pointer
SYNOPSIS
resource popen (string $command, string $mode)
DESCRIPTION
Opens a pipe to a process executed by forking the command given by $command.
PARAMETERS
o $command
- The command
o $mode
- The mode
RETURN VALUES
Returns a file pointer identical to that returned by fopen(3), except that it is unidirectional (may only be used for reading or writing)
and must be closed with pclose(3). This pointer may be used with fgets(3), fgetss(3), and fwrite(3). When the mode is 'r', the returned
file pointer equals to the STDOUT of the command, when the mode is 'w', the returned file pointer equals to the STDIN of the command.
If an error occurs, returns FALSE.
EXAMPLES
Example #1
popen(3) example
<?php
$handle = popen("/bin/ls", "r");
?>
If the command to be executed could not be found, a valid resource is returned. This may seem odd, but makes sense; it allows you to
access any error message returned by the shell:
Example #2
popen(3) example
<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
/* Add redirection so we can get stderr. */
$handle = popen('/path/to/executable 2>&1', 'r');
echo "'$handle'; " . gettype($handle) . "
";
$read = fread($handle, 2096);
echo $read;
pclose($handle);
?>
NOTES
Note
If you're looking for bi-directional support (two-way), use proc_open(3).
Note
When safe mode is enabled, you can only execute files within the safe_mode_exec_dir. For practical reasons, it is currently not
allowed to have .. components in the path to the executable.
Warning
With safe mode enabled, the command string is escaped with escapeshellcmd(3). Thus, echo y | echo x becomes echo y | echo x.
SEE ALSO
pclose(3), fopen(3), proc_open(3).
PHP Documentation Group POPEN(3)
