fopen() an executable?

[Wynder]

In Perl, it's possible to open an executable and write to it the input it requires -- for example, the unix 'passwd' command... Is anything similar available in PHP?

[superwormy]

... it sounds like wha tyou want to do is not 'open' an executable, but execute an executable. You can do this with backticks, like this:

<?php

ps -ax

?>

Or with a system() function call.

[Wynder]

That's assuming that the executable is a single command entity that returns a value right away. I need to be able to write input to a command ala Perl and how it opens it as a file.

For instance, the password command dialog might look like this:

passwd [user]
Enter old password: [text here]
Enter new password: [text here]
Confirm new password: [text here]

So I need to be able to execute the command and step through that process echo'ing in text to run the program through it's completion.