Can't execute PHP script using PHP exec

Question

I am trying to invoke a script which takes several seconds (web services with 3rd party) using the PHP exec call. After much struggling, I reduced this to the classic hello world example. The calling script looks like:

exec('/usr/bin/php /home/quote2bi/tmp/helloworld.php > /tmp/execoutput.txt 2>&1 &');

When I run this, the output execoutput.txt contains a copy of the invoking script page, not hello world as I expected.

Why can't I get this PHP script to execute using exec? Note that when I change the command to something like ls -l, the output is a directory listing as expected. btw, in case it matters, I did chmod the called script to 755...

Update - I moved the exec call to the end of the calling script and at least now I don't see the calling script executed in the output. Thx to posters and I will try some of these ideas.

Help!

Thanks Steve

Answer 1

I had this issue also and it turns out this is a bug in php (#11430). The fix is to use php-cli when calling another php script within a php script. So you can still use exec but rather than use php use php-cli when calling it in the browser:

exec("php-cli  somescript.php");

This worked for me.