system() to execute a config-file and sending variables to php

[Arne Lund]

I've to read variables out of a config-file, that is stored on a
Linux-machine.
When I connect to the server with puTTY, I can execute the config with:
.. /usr/local/webspace/config

then I can echo the contained variables:
echo $var1
everything works fine.

Now I want to execute the config by a php-script.
I try to open the file with the system() command:
system('. /usr/local/webspace/config', $retval);

I hoped to get the same variables now for doing some stuff with them in php.
But there are no variables, but the $retval = 0

Any ideas?

Arne Lund

[DrTebi]

Re: system() to execute a config-file and sending variables to php

On Thu, 13 May 2004 17:34:14 +0200, Arne Lund wrote:
[color=blue]
> I've to read variables out of a config-file, that is stored on a
> Linux-machine.
> When I connect to the server with puTTY, I can execute the config with:
> . /usr/local/webspace/config
>
> then I can echo the contained variables:
> echo $var1
> everything works fine.
>
> Now I want to execute the config by a php-script.
> I try to open the file with the system() command:
> system('. /usr/local/webspace/config', $retval);
>
> I hoped to get the same variables now for doing some stuff with them in php.
> But there are no variables, but the $retval = 0
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Arne Lund[/color]

The problem is that $retval returns the return value of the script,
_not_ the output of the script. To get the output, do this:

$output = system('. /usr/local/webspace/config', $retval);

Many Unix programs set a return value after executing. For example, if you
use 'grep', it returns a '0' if it was successful, '1' if not. Let's say
'ls' returns this:
..
...
readme.txt
foo.c

Now 'ls | grep foo.c' returns
foo.c
and grep has set the return value to '0'. To get the return value, you can
use 'echo $?' at the shell prompt after executing the above command. If
you do 'ls | grep file.txt', the output is nothing, but the return value
of grep will be '1'.

So when you were getting a '0' for $retval, that meant that your script
executed successfully with a return status of '0'.

DrTebi