shell_exec help

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

Good Friday to everyone!

I am writing some PHP code to find certain files and the search the files for a certain string. For example, this is what I have. This works in a LINUX shell environment, yet I need to have it work in PHP since the GUI is web based.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Mike


<?php
$output = shell_exec('find /sync/www/html/ohx/products/MEMNPWOHX* -type f -exec grep "HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT" /dev/null {} \;');
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";
?>

ManiacDan · February 10, 2012

shell_exec will always execute on the server, regardless of how you access the file (through the cli or through a web server).

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

Thank you for the reply. I understand that. Not sure what I am missing to make this work under PHP.

ManiacDan · February 10, 2012

This is already PHP code. What's the problem?

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

The shell_exec code is not working. Is there something that I am missing?

ManiacDan · February 10, 2012

This is working for me:

$output = shell_exec('find ~/Desktop/ -type f -exec grep "secure" /dev/null {} \;');

You should be able to simply copy and paste your command from inside shell_exec directly into a command line, and vice versa. Does it work if you try it directly?

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

I am not able to display anything. I believe it has something to do with the wildcard (*) and the multiwords in the grep. Thoughts?

ManiacDan · February 10, 2012

Oh, you're not using find properly.

Find takes two arguments:

find <where to look> <what to look for>

You're looking for something more like:

find /sync/www/html/ohx/products/ -name MEMNPWOHX*

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

That was it! Thank you, kind Sir!

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

This works well. Thank you for your help. Trying to get the variables to work is being a pain.

$output = shell_exec('find "$pil" -type f -exec grep "$string" /dev/null {} \;');

ManiacDan · February 10, 2012

PHP variables aren't interpolated inside single quotes, you have to concatenate them. You should also run them through shell_escape. Also, remember that $pil is in the wrong format, you need <location> and <pattern> out of that.

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

Ok here is what I came up with, Thanks for the huge help from ManiacDan! Now I have a list of files that should have say HEAT ADVISORY in them, but when I run the script from the form to gather the $pil and $string, it only shows the listing from one file. Not all of them.

MEMNPWOHX*HEAT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECTfind MEMNPWOHX* -type f -exec grep "HEAT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT" /dev/null {} \;

MEMNPWOHX.0810:* THE HEAT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FOR

MEMNPWOHX.0810:* THE HEAT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FOR THAT PORTION OF MIDDLE TN

MEMNPWOHX.0810:* THE HEAT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT FOR THAT PART OF MIDDLE TN

<?php
session_start();
$pil = $_POST['pil'];
$pil = strtoupper($pil);
$string = $_POST['string'];
$string = strtoupper($string);
$pil = "$pil"."*";
echo $pil;
echo $string;
$cmd = "find $pil -type f -exec grep \"$string\" /dev/null {} \;";
echo $cmd;
$output = shell_exec($cmd);
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";
?>

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

This is what I get from the command line in LINUX. As you will see, I only get one file listed with the php code.... and all of them in a LINUX shell.

MEMNPWOHX.0609:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 8 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0609:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON TO 8 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0610:...A HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FOR THE WESTERN QUARTER OF MIDDLE TN

MEMNPWOHX.0610:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT THIS EVENING...

MEMNPWOHX.0705:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON SUNDAY TO 10 PM CDT MONDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0705:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 10 PM CDT MONDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0705:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM THIS AFTERNOON TO 10 PM CDT MONDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0706:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 7 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0710:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 7 PM CDT THIS

MEMNPWOHX.0710:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON TO 7 PM CDT FRIDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0711:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON MONDAY TO 7 PM CDT TUESDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0711:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT TUESDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0711:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON WEDNESDAY TO 7 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0805:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CDT SATURDAY FOR MIDDLE

MEMNPWOHX.0805:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CDT SATURDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0807:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM TUESDAY TO 7 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0807:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT THURSDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0808:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON...

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 7 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM TUESDAY TO 7 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT THIS EVENING...

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FOR THE FAR NORTHWEST PORTION OF MIDDLE

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT THIS EVENING...

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 7 PM CDT THIS

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON TO 7 PM CDT TUESDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0810:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT WEDNESDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0811:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM NOON WEDNESDAY TO 7 PM CDT

MEMNPWOHX.0811:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CDT THURSDAY...

MEMNPWOHX.0811:...HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO 7 PM CDT

ManiacDan · February 10, 2012

You ran this command on the command line?

find MEMNPWOHX* -type f -exec grep "HEAT ADVISORY IS IN EFFECT" /dev/null {} \;

And that command produced the list in your last post? That command is not correctly formatted.

Also, you absolutely must run these strings through escapeshellarg (which automatically quotes them for you).

michael.davis · February 10, 2012

Yes that worked. When I run the command in a terminal shell like you listed, this is what I get:

[mikey@ohx-lw-ostrich products]# find /sync/www/html/ohx/products/ -name MEMNPWOHX* -exec grep "HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT"

find: paths must precede expression

Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [path...] [expression]

[mike@ohx-lw-ostrich products]# find MEMNPWOHX* -type f -exec grep "HEAT ADVISORY IN EFFECT" /dev/null {} \;