Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=43908&edit=1
ID: 43908
Updated by: rasmus@php.net
Reported by: Arne dot Heizmann at csr dot com
Summary: Add an optional parameter to exec() to not trim
whitespace from output
-Status: Open
+Status: Wont fix
Type: Feature/Change Request
-Package: Feature/Change Request
+Package: *General Issues
Operating System: Windows 2000
PHP Version: 5.2.5
Block user comment: N
Private report: N
New Comment:
If you want the raw unaltered output from the command use shell_exec() not
exec(). By definition exec() has to use a delimiter in order to create the array.
If you don't want it to do that, just grab the raw via shell_exec() and do your
own parsing.
Previous Comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2012-12-12 23:08:08] dwake at box dot com
I've just run into this "feature", writing a tool that needs to be able to read in a
file from a given commit repo. Because of the "feature", every line in the resulting file
is stripped of trailing whitespace, creating a lot of spurious diffs.
I am at a loss to see the motivation for this behavior. Information is being discarded, with no
possibility of recovering it. The only workaround I can think of is to
1. Use sed, or a comparable utility, to add a non-whitespace character to the end of every line
2. Make the PHP exec() call
3. In PHP, strip the spurious character from the end of each line.
Please put in the extra flag to turn this behavior off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-07-18 16:02:08] jani@php.net
Reclassified.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-07-18 14:28:05] Arne dot Heizmann at csr dot com
This is most certainly not expected behaviour, and furthermore, it is dataloss.
If you must preserve backwards compatibility, which is certainly fair, then I recommend you add a
new boolean option to the exec() call to preserve the whitespace. Either way, this bug is not bogus.
I have an application whose output may or may not contain lines that contain only whitespace. I need
for this whitespace to be preserved as otherwise I cannot parse the output correctly.
Please note that I'm not talking about the trailing "\n" which is mentioned in the
documentation. I'm referring to all other whitespace, especially spaces and tabs.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-07-17 23:43:21] jani@php.net
Expected behaviour and can not be changed. RTFM: http://php.net/exec
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2008-06-02 13:26:52] Arne dot Heizmann at csr dot com
Could we have this fix in the next version please? Just remove all the code that removes the
whitespace?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view
the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at
https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=43908
--
Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=43908&edit=1