about saving files with PHP

[ShawnD]

a few things:
-who does PHP write as? if i'm in a folder owned by shawnd and it is chmoded to 755, can PHP still write in that folder?
-can PHP save or open beyond the Apache document root? my Programming PHP book has a safety section on security and it shows a sloppy code which it says could allow a user to view my /ect/passwd file, can PHP realy read all files on my hard drive if given the correct relative path?

[zenon]

Yes , it's possible to open for writing a file out the document root, but only if allowed by permission.

[ShawnD]

ok well i'll assume you can write as well....

but who does PHP write as?

[bernouli]

mmm, maybe PHP writes as nobody