How can I execute a PHP script from Java?

Question

I have a php script which is executed over a URL. (eg www.something.com/myscript?param=xy)

When this script is executed in a browser it gives a coded result, a negative or positive number.

I want to execute this script from Java code(J2EE) and store that result in some object.

I'm trying to use httpURLConnection for that. I establish a connection but can not fetch the result. I'm not sure if I execute the script at all.

Answer 1

public class URLConnectionReader {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        URL yahoo = new URL("http://www.yahoo.com/");
        URLConnection yc = yahoo.openConnection();
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
                                new InputStreamReader(
                                yc.getInputStream()));
        String inputLine;

        while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) 
            System.out.println(inputLine);
        in.close();
    }
}

This snippet is from the offical Java tutorial ( http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/networking/urls/readingWriting.html ). This should help you.

Answer 2

If your J2EE app is deployed on the same server the PHP script is on, you can also execute it directly through as an independent process like this:

  public String execPHP(String scriptName, String param) {
    try {
      String line;
      StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder();
      Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("php " + scriptName + " " + param);
      BufferedReader input =
        new BufferedReader
          (new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
      while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
          output.append(line);
      }
      input.close();
    }
    catch (Exception err) {
      err.printStackTrace();
    }
    return output.toString();
  }

You will pay the overhead of creating and executing a process, but you won't be creating a network connection every time you need to execute the script. I think that depending on the size of your output, one will perform better than the other.

Answer 3

If you are trying to run it over HTTP I would recommend the Apache Commons HTTP Client libraries. They make it incredibly easy to perform this type of task. For example:

    HttpClient http = new HttpClient();
    http.setParams(new HttpClientParams());
    http.setState(new HttpState());

    //For Get
    GetMethod get = new GetMethod("http://www.something.com/myscript?param="+paramVar);
    http.executeMethod(get);

    // For Post
    PostMethod post = new PostMethod("http://www.something.com/myscript");
    post.addParameter("param", paramVar);
    http.executeMethod(post);

Answer 4

On the related note if you are trying to execute a php script from a java program, you may refer the following code

        Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("php foo.php");

        p.waitFor();

        String line;

        BufferedReader error = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getErrorStream()));
        while((line = error.readLine()) != null){
            System.out.println(line);
        }
        error.close();

        BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()));
        while((line=input.readLine()) != null){
            System.out.println(line);

        }

        input.close();

        OutputStream outputStream = p.getOutputStream();
        PrintStream printStream = new PrintStream(outputStream);
        printStream.println();
        printStream.flush();
        printStream.close();

Answer 5

I faced exactly the same issue today. For me, that thing which worked was URLEncoding the PHP script parameters using java.net.URLEncoder.encode method.

String sURL = "myURL";
String sParam="myparameters";
String sParam=java.net.URLEncoder.encode(sParam,"UTF-8");
String urlString=sURL + sParam;     
    HttpClient http = new HttpClient();
    try {
        http.getHttpResponse(urlString);
    } catch (AutomationException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    http=null;

Answer 6

I faced similar situation where I need to call PHP function from java code and I have used below code to achieve this. In below code "/var/www/html/demo/demo.php" is the PHP file name and callToThisFunction() is the PHP function name. Hope this helpful for someone.

public static void execPHP() {

        Process process = null;

        try {

            process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[]{"php", "-r", "require '/var/www/html/demo/demo.php'; callToThisFunction();"});

            process.waitFor();

            String line;

            BufferedReader errorReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getErrorStream()));

            while ((line = errorReader.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }

            errorReader.close();

            BufferedReader outputReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));

            while ((line = outputReader.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);

            }

            outputReader.close();

        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        OutputStream outputStream = process.getOutputStream();
        PrintStream printStream = new PrintStream(outputStream);
        printStream.println();
        printStream.flush();
        printStream.close();

    }