Getting PHP to run a Python script

Question

I am trying to run a Python program using PHP. Here's the code

$command = '/usr/local/bin/python script.py file';
$temp = exec($command, $output);

This works through the command line but not while running it through the browser. I am using Apache so probably it needs the right privileges? I am pretty new to Linux and have no idea how to get this working.

Any help would be appreciated!

Edit 1:

Tried to use proc_open but nothing happens. I gave the full path to the script. Made the script executable but no luck. Any other things I can try on the server? (It's a CentOS 5)

Answer 1

您需要传递脚本的完整路径，并且还需要确保运行Web服务器的用户可以读取脚本（这意味着路径中的每个目录必须是Web用户的+ x）。

Answer 2

Realized what was wrong:

1. The domain was set up as a virtual host and PHP's safe_mode was enabled. proc_open, exec, system, passthru etc. do not work under safe_mode I guess.

2. Put the script in the directory accessible by the vhost. Apache wasn't able to access the directories outside the vhost document root.

Thanks for the help!

Answer 3

Few checkpoints

• script.py should be pass full path, eg, /home/abhinav/script.py
• script.py should be executable, chmod +x script.py

Answer 4

To get my CodeIgniter helper to run a python script, I had to put #!/usr/bin/python on the first line of my python script, and NOT call python from the exec.

+1 for also doing chmod +x

My helper looks like this:

<?php
    function scrape($site, $key, $user_id)
    {
        $cmd = str_replace('system/','',BASEPATH).APPPATH."python/spider.py -u $site -k $key -i $user_id";
        $resp = exec($cmd, $out);
        return $out;
    }
?>