exec(3) [php man page]

EXEC(3) 								 1								   EXEC(3)

exec - Execute an external program

SYNOPSIS

       string exec (string  $command, [array  &$output], [int  &$return_var])

DESCRIPTION

       exec(3) executes the given $command.

PARAMETERS

	      o $command
		- The command that will be executed.

	      o $output
		- If the $output argument is present, then the specified array will be filled with every line of output from the command. Trailing
		whitespace, such as 
, is not included in this array. Note that if the array already contains some elements, exec(3) will  append
		to  the  end  of  the  array.  If you do not want the function to append elements, call unset(3) on the array before passing it to
		exec(3).

	      o $return_var
		- If the $return_var argument is present along with the $output argument, then the return status of the executed command  will	be
		written to this variable.

RETURN VALUES

	The last line from the result of the command. If you need to execute a command and have all the data from the command passed directly back
       without any interference, use the passthru(3) function.

	To get the output of the executed command, be sure to set and use the $output parameter.

EXAMPLES

       Example #1

	      An exec(3) example

	      <?php
	      // outputs the username that owns the running php/httpd process
	      // (on a system with the "whoami" executable in the path)
	      echo exec('whoami');
	      ?>

NOTES

       Warning

	      When allowing user-supplied data to be passed to this function, use escapeshellarg(3) or escapeshellcmd(3) to ensure that users can-
	      not trick the system into executing arbitrary commands.

       Note

	      If a program is started with this function, in order for it to continue running in the background, the output of the program must be
	      redirected to a file or another output stream. Failing to do so will cause PHP to hang until the execution of the program ends.

       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

       system(3), passthru(3), escapeshellcmd(3), pcntl_exec(3), backtick operator.

PHP Documentation Group 														   EXEC(3)

Check Out this Related Man Page

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)

Linux and UNIX Man Pages

exec(3) [php man page]

Check Out this Related Man Page