System function

[Xu Wei Jie]

system("php $frame $new_id > src/$output_dir/$output", $retval);

 

what does this function do? Any help would be appreciated . Thanks

 

[Maq]

Not knowing what the values of the variables, it's kind of hard to tell.

 

Looks like it calls a PHP script that dumps something into $output.  $retval is the return value from the system call.

 

Read the manual on system().

[Xu Wei Jie]

I would not understand what does php $var1 $var2 do.....???????

[Maq]

I would not understand what does php $var1 $var2 do.....???????

 

What are you talking about, $var1 $var2?  Read the manual link I provided it will explain it a lot better than I can, it also provides many examples.

[premiso]

It uses the php cli (command line interface) PHP CLI.

 

What it is doing depends on what is housed in the two variables, as they hold the comments. Hence why Maq asked that.

[Xu Wei Jie]

The first variables is the php file to be interpreted. I have no idea what is the second variable for.Thus, I am asking what could it be for? I normally use CLI like how I always used to

i.e. php example.php

[premiso]

What does the second variable contain?

[Xu Wei Jie]

$new_id = store_data(......);

 

The second variable basically gets its value from the statement above which I am not sure what it does.

[Maq]

$new_id = store_data(......);

 

The second variable basically gets its value from the statement above which I am not sure what it does.

 

That really doesn't help at all cause then we would need to know what store_data returns...

[Xu Wei Jie]

I have found out more.

 

store_data() actually returns into $new_id another file name where objects are stored and serialized into.

 

$frame is the name of another php file.

Thus system("php $frame $new_id > src/$output_dir/$output", $retval);

will run 2 CLI processes to direct the content of $frame into an output path and the other to deserialize the objects stored in $new_id.

 

However there is something that I still don't quite understand.

Does running php cli on 2 filenames interpret both of them and direct them into the output path?

 

 

[trq]

$new_id is simply the argument passed to $frame. You need to look in $frame file to see what it does with its arguments.

[Xu Wei Jie]

Do you think this UNIX specific command can be implemented using PHP in built libraries?

 

system("php $frame $new_id > src/$output_dir/$output", $retval);

 

 

[trq]

Theres nothing UNIX specific about it. $frame obviously is a php script, why don't you look at it and see what it does?

[Xu Wei Jie]

What I heard was system function is very OS restrictive means it is not portable across platforms. Obviously I do know $frame is a php script. But i am exploring into php file i/o libraries to do the exact same thing as the command I typed does.

 

The command does take in objects from $newid into $frame which is ran by system and direct its output to a specified file

[trq]

So, use fopen and fwrite to write to these files from within the $frame php script instead.

 

We really can't help much without seeing code.

[Xu Wei Jie]

Let's take away the $new_id which is supposed to be a file containing objects

Let src/$output_dir/$output be a directory, we will name it src/out.php

 

I will run

system("php $frame > src/$output_dir/$output", $retval);

 

Let's create a dummy php file and its filename to be assigned to $frame

$frame = dummy.php

 

dummy.php

<?php

echo 'This is a dummy''

?>

 

If I ran a system command like this, it will run dummy.php and output 'This is a dummy' to src/out.php

 

If I use file i/o libraries, i can never run or achieve something like

php $frame $new_id

which is a command but I do not wish to use system command, thus I was thinking how should I work around it.

 

Placing file functions inside the script may help but it will also means a lot more lines of codes. If i can do something like what system() can do and using php in built functions only, it would be great.

 

Any ideas or alternatives?

[trq]

I really don't see the issue here.

 

Put simply, you have a php file...

 

<?php

  $new_id = 10;
  $output_file = 'src/foo/out.log';
  include 'dummy.php';

?>

 

Then, in dummy.php...

<?php

  ob_start();

  echo "The id is $new_id";
  // more script & output goes here.

  $out = ob_get_contents();
  file_put_contents($output_file, $out);
  ob_end_clean();

?>

 

You could even wrap most of that into the calling script so dummy.php would be cleaner. This would make your calling script look more like....

 

<?php

  ob_start();

  $new_id = 10;
  $output_file = 'src/foo/out.log';
  
  include 'dummy.php';

  $out = ob_get_contents();
  file_put_contents($output_file, $out);
  ob_end_clean();

?>

 

While dummy.php would simply contain....

<?php

  echo "The id is $new_id";

  // more stuff to output

?>

 

I think your making this a hell of alot more difficult than it need be, either that or I am completely missing your point.

[Xu Wei Jie]

ob_start(); and ob_get_contents(); are new to me

The solution you gave seems viable if $new_id is just a variable.

 

Are there any file functions that given a php filename, I can run it and get the contents? I am just using pseudo code here

 

i.e. $contents = runphp('filename', second parameter....,third parameter...)

fwrite($contents to another file)

 

 

[trq]

Are there any file functions that given a php filename, I can run it and get the contents? I am just using pseudo code here

 

No, but you could easily make one.

 

<?php

function execphp($file, $args=array()) {
  ob_start();
  extract($args);
  include $file;
  $out = ob_get_contents();
  ob_end_clean();
  return $out;
}

$contents = execphp('foo.php',array('bar' => 1, 'bob' => 50));

?>

 

This would make the variables $bar and $bob exist (and contain the values 1 & 50) within foo.php, execute the code within foo.php and return any output into $contents.

[Xu Wei Jie]

Thanks . It is quite a neat solution. However I have a problem here.

I am not interacting with integer parameters but a file name($new_id) of a file that contain objects

 

Pseudocode to simulate the command " php 'filename' $new_id "

$contents = runphp('filename', $new_id);

 

How do I code that to your execphp function?

 

[Xu Wei Jie]

I did this. Not sure whether if I did it correctly

 

function execphp($file, $args) {

  fetch_data($args);

// this is a function to fetch the data from a file to initialize the objects

  ob_start();

  include $file;

  $out = ob_get_contents();

  ob_end_clean();

  return $out;

}

 

I am still having some problem with it and debugging in the process

 

[Xu Wei Jie]

I have found a problem.

The include statement does process the file but the contents are not written back to the file.

 

system command seems to run in a special way.

 

i.e.

 

if I put these lines individually in a script. they give you the same results

 

<?php include("SecurityCheck.php"); ?>

 

or

 

<?php system("php SecurityCheck.php",$retval); ?>

 

but in the background, they don't get processed the same way.

 

Thus, I was looking for an alternative to the system command. thorpe, thanks for your script but it doesn't work.

[Xu Wei Jie]

Ignore my previous updates. I think I have found the problem

 

I am working with a file that has a special extension

 

Thus system("php example.xxx.php",$retval) can work fine as long there are php tags to be interpreted in there.

 

However the include("example.xxx.php"); is not able to work. I think it has to do with the function itself.

 

Thus, I am still working on an alternative. If you have ideas, let me know ^.^