PHP - Function name must be a string

Question

The error:

PHP Notice:  Undefined variable: exec in readings.php on line 3
PHP Fatal error:  Function name must be a string in readings.php on line 3

The code:

<?php
    require('smarty_config.php');
    exec('reading_fetcher.py',$output,$ret_code);
    $smarty->assign('readings',$output);
    $smarty->display('readings.tpl');
?>

I was asked for the code of reading_fetcher.py so here it is:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import urllib2, re

response = urllib2.urlopen('http://it.ctsfw.edu/inc/nc_scriptureframe.php')

html = response.read()

def remove_html_tags(data):
    p = re.compile(r'<.*?>')
    return p.sub(' ', data)

import re
import htmlentitydefs

def convertentity(m):
    if m.group(1)=='#':
        try:
            return unichr(int(m.group(2)))
        except ValueError:
            return '&#%s;' % m.group(2)
        try:
            return htmlentitydefs.entitydefs[m.group(2)]
        except KeyError:
            return '&%s;' % m.group(2)

def converthtml(s):
    return re.sub(r'&(#?)(.+?);',convertentity,s)

readings =  converthtml(str(remove_html_tags(html)))
readings.replace("&nbsp;", " ")

print readings[699:]

I already looked here, here and here. Two of those errors are an extra "$". I don't see an extra "$" on my function name. The third error is having "()" instead of "[]". So I tried replacing them. That didn't work. What else might I try?

Does function_exists('exec') return true? (It pretty surely does, but who knows?) — zneak
– zneak, Commented Feb 1, 2011 at 5:26
@zneak It should do, otherwise he would of got Fatal error: Call to undefined function. (I think.) — alex
– alex, Commented Feb 1, 2011 at 5:29
What happens if you comment away smarty_config.php? Do you get a different error? If so, probably that the problem is in the file. — zneak
– zneak, Commented Feb 1, 2011 at 5:34
@zneak: Commenting out smarty_config.php has no effect. The error remains the same. — John
– John, Commented Feb 1, 2011 at 5:53

David Costa · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-01 08:47:52Z

1

exec() could have been disabled by the server admin. In this scenario a call to exec would print an E_NOTICE and a E_WARNING. So if you disabled warning printing you can only see the E_NOTICE and potentially miss the more interesting warning saying "exec has been disabled for security reason".

You can add this line to your code

error_reporting(E_ALL);

so that you can have a more verbose execution.

answered Feb 1, 2011 at 8:47

David Costa

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2 Comments

acme Over a year ago

Good hint, it has most likely been disabled. @OP: If you have access to php.ini, look for disable_functions, this is where the sysop can disable php functions.

John Over a year ago

@acme: disable_functions is set to nothing. @David: Error reporting is already set to E_ALL in php.ini so adding error_reporting(E_ALL); to my code did nothing.

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