Runnin php scripts under other programs

[epod]

I have recently approached an issue where I must retreive data from a descriptor. The data
is populated into the descriptor by the program which will run the php script.

I have searched for ways to read the descriptor, but have failed as most of the read() functions
appear to be geared around files. Also, I was hoping to avoid running the external program
from within the php script with proc_open in order to obtain this data.

So a general run down of how this will work, is this:

/sbin/external_prog /sbin/script.php

external_prog pushes data into the descriptor, and script.php needs to pull the data.