[macgyvr64]

I've got a command-line app that continuously prints to the screen, and I'd like to be able to either dump that data to a file or (preferable) grab the last n lines with PHP, as it will be started from a PHP script. Is there a way to do either of those?

They mention on the PHP.net exec() function list that if you want to do just that, then you should redirect the output to a file. I tried using > to redirect it, but it hangs there waiting for the app to finish (regardless of whether I call it from PHP or right from a terminal). What other methods are there of redirecting output?

[Gavin]

You're looking at communicating with a process while it's running. You may have to do some of the fancier PHP pipes stuff like popen() or proc_open()


Something like exec('/bin/my_script > file.txt') should set the script in motion and not hang around for the result. Maybe you don't have the correct file permissions or something.

I'd set error_reporting(E_ALL); before the exec line and see if you get more info.

Try piping the script to a file in the terminal and see what happens; test it with php out of the loop, could be something odd with the script.


http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.popen.php

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.proc-open.php