Re: php-cli - Controlling external programs

Have you checked out the -F option for tar? It may prove helpful: "If you want more elaborate behavior than this, give tar the --info-script=script-name (--new-volume-script=script-name, -F script-name) option. The file script-name is expected to be a program (or shell script) to be run instead of the normal prompting procedure. When the program finishes, tar will immediately begin writing the next volume." Bogdan Mike Maltese wrote:

I'm writing a script to be run from the command line. It controls my DAT autoloader (tape changer) and runs tar so that I can automate my backups. With the -M option, tar will prompt for a new tape when the current tape is full. How can I get the signal from tar that the tape needs to be changed? Is there another way to interact with external programs other than, exec, backticks, etc.? I'm running 4.3.2-cli on FreeBSD with POSIX and pcntl functions enabled. Thanks, Mike