PHP: Executing Command Line Application That Prompts Users

Question

I have a command line application I need to execute from my PHP web application. Say the command is the following:

foo -arg1 -arg2 -arg3

Based on certain conditions, the command line application will prompt user to hit the enter key (e.g. "Please press enter to continue.").

From my PHP application, how do I execute the command line AND send the enter key as response to the prompt?

I'm developing on WAMP. Production code is LAMP.

Answer 1

Have you tried echo "\n" > foo -arg1 -arg2 -arg3 ?

Answer 2

You will really need to open a process handle and parse the programs output and write appropriate output in response.

Check out the expect extension though, which can make this sort of thing easier.

Answer 3

That's what the 'yes' program is for. It dumps an endless stream of 'y\n' (or whatever you tell it to via arguments) to the program. It exists for this purpose (answering 'yes' to "do you want to continue" prompts).

shell_exec('yes | foo -arg1 -arg2 -arg3')

Answer 4

$value = fgets(STDIN);

This will allow the user to enter in a value, which you can then access via $value.