Odd behavior with exec and zip file.

[rogair]

I have a script that uses the exec() function to create a zipfile from a list of products when a customer orders. Trouble is under certain conditions it doesn't seem to work. It creates part of the zipfile, then it dumps the rest into another file named ziXXXXXX where XXXXXX is a random string. I can reproduce this, but when I echo out the exec() statement then copy the command and paste it into a command line it works. So anyone have any clue why something like:

zip -j /usr/www/path/20011214/Ro/afproducts.zip /usr/www/path/mp3/file1 /usr/www/path/mp3/file2 /usr/www/path/mp3/file3 /usr/www/path/mp3/file4 /usr/www/path/mp3/file5 /usr/www/path/mp3/file6

works from a command line but not within the exec() function. Also this works fine for most cases. When the file list is sufficiently large is when it chokes.

[emcb_php]

Hi,

Try using the system() function instead eg:

system("command")

this could also be happening because of resource limitations, actually come to think about it in your php.ini file there is something about memory limits and as your dealing with mp3 files (more that a few megs i guess). The default setting is 8 megs to this could be why.

Elfyn

[rogair]

Well the trouble wasn't max memory usage, it was command execution time. The default 30 seconds for excecution wasn't long enough to create the zip file when the contents were sufficiently large. So though your idea wasn't exactly the trouble, it sent me in the right direction.

Thanks.