How to redirect output of PHP script DURING execution?

Question

Is there a way to redirect output of an executing PHP script?

Of course this is trivial when launching the script via the command line. But how is this accomplished after the script is started?

Note: I need to capture the syntax errors and such as well.

Answer 1

PHP has file i/o functions to write to a file.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fopen.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fwrite.php

Answer 2

You can use PHP's output control even in a command line script:

echo "123\n";
ob_start();
echo "456\n";
$s = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
echo "*$s";

Answer 3

Syntax errors will output to STDERR, not STDOUT. Make sure you also redirect STDERR in your pipline...

./myscript | myfile.php &> out.txt

Answer 4

If you want to capture parser errors, you need to:

1. Make sure display_errors is On

2. Set an error_prepend_string and an error_append_string

3. Call ob_start from an auto_prepend file that runs before every PHP file you might be executing.

4. Use set_error_handler as you normally would, and make your callback sift through the named output buffer, looking for your custom error_prepend_string and error_append_string. If you find it, then shunt your output wherever you want it. If you don't, then let it go wherever it would normally.

Most of this can be achieved through ini_set calls, but the auto_prepend file will need to be specified in your php.ini.