How to execute commands through PHP? - php

Question

I am trying to convert videos into MP4 using FFMPEG. I have it set up this way:
.
.
private $ffmpegPath;
public function __construct($con) {
$this->con = $con;
$this->ffmpegPath = realpath("ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe");
}
.
.
public function convertVideoToMp4($tempFilePath, $finalFilePath){
$cmd = "$this->ffmpegPath -i $tempFilePath $finalFilePath 2>&1";
$outputLog = array();
exec($cmd, $outputLog, $returnCode);
if($returnCode != 0){
foreach ($outputLog as $line){
echo $line."<br>";
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
And in the browser i get the following error:
'C:\xampp\htdocs\Thinksmart First Sprint' is not recognized as an internal or external command".
In my constructor i have it set up to give me the realpath and i suspect that this is what it does in the command line:
C:/xampp/htdocs/Thinksmart FIrst Sprint/ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe -i (file temp name) (file name i want)
And this should work, but i dont know why it wont. Any ideas? Its my first time working with video conversions.

Answer 1

As you can see, spaces in your command are used to separate arguments. So if there are spaces in a path you need to quote the entire path with quotes so that the shell/processor knows they aren't separators but are one argument:
$cmd = $cmd = '"' . $this->ffmpegPath . '" -i $tempFilePath $finalFilePath 2>&1';
Which will result in a command something like this:
"C:/xampp/htdocs/Thinksmart First Sprint/ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe" -i C:/path/to/file1 C:/path/to/file2 2>&1
I think only double-quotes work on Windows. You need to quote $tempFilePath and $finalFilePath if they might have spaces in them as well.