note 105509 deleted from function.shell-exec by danbrown

Note Submitter: aaron_mckinstry at yahoo dot com ---- Interestingly, if you execute a script which is not in your path (or you have made a typo, or if the script does no exist at all), you will get no return value. The error will be logged into the error_log of your webserver. If you don't want to pass parameters to the program you need to run, you can manually create a link to the program, and then place the link inside the directory where you're running your php script from. Then just use shell_exec('executable_program.exe.lnk'); to run it. This will work if you don't want to pass command line parameters to your executable. If you want to pass command line parameters to the program, then you can do two things that I know of: 1)Download one of many command line tools that allow you to create and modify shortcuts, and then use the tool to change the target property of the shortcut to include the command line parameters you want to pass (or you can use a vbscript to do this, possibly using php's file capabilities to change the parameters on the fly within the vbscript; then you could run the vbscript from the command line to create the shortcut and run the shortcut as shown above). 2)The other workaround is to use PHP file's capabilities to write a temporary batch file that contains the command line call you want to perform (i.e., the program you want to run that is outside the current path) and then execute the batch file from the shell_exec()/exec() function. E.g.: $handle = fopen(getcwd().'\\temp_bat_file.bat', 'w'); fwrite($handle, "$command"); fclose($handle); shell_exec("temp_bat_file.bat");//or exec("temp_bat_file.bat"); NOTE: In $command, I think you have to list the absolute path to the executable/program you want to run (i.e., "C:\absolute\that\to\dir\executable.exe").