PHP Functions Essential Reference

popen

resource popen(string command, string mode) 

Opens a pipe.

Returns:

File pointer

Description:

This function forks the program specified in command and opens a pipe to it. The pipe can only be unidirectional; that is, only read or write operations are allowed. The returned handle can be treated like a file handle, using fgetss(), fgets(), and fputs(). The mode argument can be either r (read) or w (write).

Warning:

3.0.11: popen() mistakenly renamed to _popen() on Windows, thus issuing error messages when trying to access popen() on Windows machines.

Example:

Output a directory using a pipe to ls

if(!$fh = popen("/bin/ls", "r")) { echo ("Could not fork ls"); } while(!feof($fh)) { $output = fgets($fh, 1024); echo ("$output<br />"); } pclose($fh); ...