system() not working in php using windows server 2003

Question

hi i have to extract the cabfile(.cab) on the server. i am Finding such script which extract cab file but i didn't get it yet. So now i am try to extract using cabarc.exe. But i face the problem that when i run command throuw commandline its work fine but when i give same command to system() or exec() function in php it is not work. code is as follow:

    $command = "c:\\exe\\cabarc X c:\\cab\\data.cab c:\\data\\";
if(($output = system($command,$return) != false)
{
  echo "$return";
}

it is not working when i use same string in commandline it works fine. please any body help me to why it not working what to do tomake it work is ther any rights issue. I had give the execute permission to the site.

thanks

Answer 1

The 2nd argument to the system function is passed by reference so it needs to be initialized by your code. Also, you should check for false using !== not != because it validates type in addition to value. Additionally, it looks like you've got an unbalanced parenthesis in your if statement. Try this:

$command = "c:\\exe\\cabarc X c:\\cab\\data.cab c:\\data\\";
$return = -1;
$output = system($command, $return);
if($output !== false)
{
    echo "Return value is: " . $return . "\r\n";
    echo "Output is:\r\n" . $output . "\r\n";
}

If that doesn't fix your issue, make sure the PHP user has permissions to access the file.

Answer 2

If you're using NTFS, check your file permissions and make sure the web server can run that executable, open the source file, and write the destination.

Answer 3

Another problem might be that the program is not allowed to run cmd.exe, maybe see if the IUSR account can execute this program as system needs to invoke a shell.