form input and shell commands

[dangtran09]

hi all - i'm new to php and also new to this forum.

i have a form that reads in 2 inputs from the user:  database name and directory.

<form action="welcome.php" method="post">
DB Name: <input type="text" name="dbname"><br>
Directory: <input type="text" name="dir"><br>
<input type="submit">
</form>


what i'm trying to do is, based on the user inputs, would for the dbname, execute a mysqldump to backup the database.  and for directory, execute a tar -czvf $dir.tar.gz $dir.

i have the following for the tar part:

$directory=$_POST["dir"];

$output = shell_exec('tar -czvf {$directory} <?php echo $directory; ?>');

however, it's not executing.  please help. thanks

[nik_jain]

two things.

- Variables don't work inside single quoted strings

- Since we are alreeady inside <?php tags the <?php echo $directory; ?> part doesn't require <?php and ?> .

Also since we just want to join (concatenate) text , the echo is also not required.

 

So Change

$output = shell_exec('tar -czvf {$directory} <?php echo $directory; ?>');

to

$output = shell_exec("tar -czvf {$directory}.tar.gz {$directory} " ) ;