Creating a process and gathering info

mkaminski

Hi there...

I've been trying to find a solution to this problem for three days. I am trying to create a script that opens up an application and runs it as a process and returns to the script and gathers the output which contains the PID. I'm just running this with php and not apache.

This is what I have so far:

<?php

$output = system('bash -c "kwrite > /dev/null 2>&1 &"');

print($output);

?>

The process is created, but I can't get the output. As I said before, I want the output so I can ascertain the PID.

Any help would be great, thanks!.

bubblenut

Try running the command from the command prompt, you'll find that it doesn't actually output anything.

mkaminski

It does for me

mkaminski

bash-2.05b# kwrite > /dev/null 2>&1 &
[1] 4060

bubblenut

Not when you wrap it in a bash command as you have. All you need in your call to system is "kwrite > /dev/null 2>&1 &".

mkaminski

Yes I know that...but the bash command wrapped around the command allows the process to run independently...without it the php script has to wait for the process to halt.

Believe me I've tried everything with the code I've posted 🙂

bubblenut

Ah, I see.
How about
bash -c "kwrite > /dev/null 2>&1 &"; ps | grep kwrite
and then take the largest pid as the one just created (assuming there can be many instances) it's not ideal but it should work.

mkaminski

Excellent... this is a great workaround...thanks...much appreciated 🙂

If anyone would have an idea on how to directly get the output that would be great too.