How to open a program (exec??)

daphreeek

Hey.

How do I open a program (such as notepad) using php from a webpage?

If I run my script (using exec) from the command line, it works perfectly. But if I try it through IE on Apache2, it wont work.

I cant figure it out - please help!

Thanks
- Matt

LordShryku

Well, notepad may be an exception( No need for a defined path), but this works for me

<?
error_reporting(E_ALL);
exec("notepad");
?>

Now just to be sure....are you trying to open notepad on the server? Or the client?

daphreeek

that worked for me on my old server but I have since upgraded to Apache2 and PHP4.3.whatever and now it doesnt.

If I look in "processes" in the task manager, the program is there and running, but it hasnt actually opened a window.

LordShryku

Bit of a hack...but give this a shot

<?
function execProg($path, $exe, $args) {
   if(file_exists($path.$exe)) {
      chdir($path);
      if(substr(php_uname(),0,7) == "Windows") {
         pclose(popen("start \"bla\" \"".$exe."\" ".escapeshellarg($args), "r"));
      }
      else {
         exec("./".$exe." ".escapeshellarg($args)." > /dev/null &");   

      }
   }
}
?>

Call it with

execProg("C:\WINNT\","notepad.exe","");