How to store output of exec() command in an array using PHP

Question

I have a Linux web server running a PHP/HTML page.

I need to save an output that has to interpreted as an array -

    exec($instruction);

where the output will be

    1 2 5 7 0 5 3 4

and I must be able to call out particular element in the array

    echo $result[4]

so far the following attempts were unsuccessful

    $result =exec($instruction); 
    or
    $result = array(exec($instruction));

Update, So far I tried this -

$result = shell_exec($instruction);
$out = explode(" ",$result);

I got the expected output, but why doesn't exxplode() return individual elements?

Array ( [0] => 1 1 1 2 1 2 0 0 1 1 )

Thanks, That solves the part where I have to separate the output, but I'm still not able to get exec() command to output an array. May be there is a better instruction? — Tom Iv
– Tom Iv, Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 3:43
exec will return a string, which you then convert in to an array via explode. $result =exec($instruction); $result_array=explode(' ',$result); — user557846
– user557846, Commented Feb 4, 2014 at 3:44

Community · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-17 19:48:52Z

14

According to documentation (php.net) exec has a second parameter that is passed by reference called $output. So you can try:

exec($instruction, $results);

And then you can access $results that will be an array with each line as an element. So:

$results[0]

will have the first line of your output.

edited Nov 17, 2023 at 19:48

CommunityBot

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answered Mar 13, 2014 at 12:16

Diana R.

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Comments

Tom Iv · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-05 03:30:37Z

4

Why explode did not work for me? The shell $instruction that I used returned "newline" or "\n". I had to split the string using "\n" as the delimiter. This worked for me -

$result = shell_exec($instruction);
$out = explode("\n",$result);

answered Feb 5, 2014 at 3:30

Tom Iv

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1 Comment

m3nda Over a year ago

This mode will only save the last iteration. ie, if you have more than 1 named process, like iexplorer windows you will get only last. Consider to use $result[] = shell_exec($instruction); $out = explode("\n",$result[0]); to archieve the same result, but you can be sure about how many proceses you close by count($result).

user557846 · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-04 03:46:57Z

3

$result =exec($instruction); 
$result_array=explode(' ',$result);

or just

$result =explode(' ',exec($instruction));

answered Feb 4, 2014 at 3:46

user557846

12 Comments

Tom Iv Over a year ago

Thanks Dagon, This worked for me. I found out my $instruction variable also had problems passing the command. Linked here - stackoverflow.com/questions/21545949/…

user557846 Over a year ago

whats the exact string returned?

user557846 Over a year ago

they are probably not spaces but something else that looks like it. try var_dump($result); and see what that returns

Tom Iv Over a year ago

This is output from var_dump() string(20) "1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 "

user557846 Over a year ago

worth a try preg_split('/\s+/', $result)

|

Lorenzo Lerate · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-01 11:21:55Z

0

I prefer to use:

$result = shell_exec($instruction);
$out = explode("\n",$result);

Because shell_exec function returns the complete output as string. If you have more than one line, you should use that.

answered Apr 1, 2015 at 11:21

Lorenzo Lerate

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