unable to execute python script from php - php

Question

I want to execute Python script from PHP file. I am able to execute simple python script like:
print("Hello World")
but when I want to execute following script, nothing happens
from pydub import AudioSegment
AudioSegment.converter = "/usr/bin/ffmpeg"
sound = AudioSegment.from_file("/var/www/dev.com/public_html/track.mp3")
sound.export("/var/www/dev.com/public_html/test.mp3", format="mp3", bitrate="96k")
and same script works fine when I execute it from terminal. here is my php script:
$output = shell_exec("/usr/bin/python /var/www/dev.com/public_html/index.py");
echo $output;
I have also tried following method but no luck:
$output = array();
$output = passthru("/usr/bin/python /var/www/dev.com/public_html/index.py");
print_r($output);
please help me

Answer 1

PHP's passthru function does not have the elegant method for which you may be searching of passing environment variables. If you must use passthru, then export your variables directly in the command:
passthru("SOMEVAR=$yourVar PATH=$newPATH ... /path/to/executable $arg1 $arg2 ...")
If you are inclined toward shell_exec, you may appreciate putenv for the slightly cleaner interface:
putenv("SOMEVAR=$yourVar");
putenv("PATH=$newPATH");
echo shell_exec("/path/to/executable $arg1 $arg2 ...");
If you are open to a more robust (if tedious) approach, consider proc_open:
$cmd = "/path/to/executable arg1 arg2 ..."
# Files 0, 1, 2 are the standard "stdin", "stdout", and "stderr"; For details
# read the PHP docs on proc_open. The key here is to give the child process a
# pipe to write to, and from which we will read and handle the "passthru"
# ourselves
$fileDescriptors = array(
0 => ["pipe", "r"],
1 => ["pipe", "w"],
2 => ["pipe", "w"]
);
$cwd = '/tmp';
$env = [
'PATH' => $newPATH,
'SOMEVAR' => $someVar,
...
];
# "pHandle" = "Process handle". Note that $pipes is new here, and will be
# given back to us
$pHandle = proc_open($cmd, $fileDescriptors, $pipes, $cwd, $env);
# crucial: did proc_open work?
if ( is_resource( $pHandle ) ) {
# $pipes is now valid
$pstdout = $pipes[ 1 ];
# Hey, whaddya know? PHP has just what we need...
fpassthru( $pstdout );
# Whenever you proc_open, you must also proc_close. Just don't
# forget to close any open file handles
fclose( $pipes[0] );
fclose( $pipes[1] );
fclose( $pipes[2] );
proc_close( $pHandle );
}

Answer 2

Acc to your reply, as you want to execute the python script from PHP
I was able to execute it using the following code
$command = escapeshellcmd('/var/www/yourscript.py');
$output = shell_exec($command);
echo $output;
Please use the above PHP code with the same python script.
Try to run the python script as a GCI script first to make sure it is working and set the permissions to public directory and script as I mentioned before
===================old ans============================
From what you asked, I guess this is what you are trying to do is that you are trying to run it as a CGI script like http://localhost/yourscript.py
And why are you using PHP to execute python script when you can run it directly as a CGI script?
here is what you need to do to make it work like a web page:
enable python CGI in apache ( or in the web server you are using ).
put the script in CGI configured directory
add proper code to your script to make it work as a CGI script
#!/usr/local/bin/python
from pydub import AudioSegment
AudioSegment.converter = "/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg"
sound = AudioSegment.from_file("/var/www/dev.com/public_html/track.mp3")
sound.export("/var/www/dev.com/public_html/test.mp3", format="mp3", bitrate="96k")
print "Content-type: text/html"
print
print ""
print ""
print ""
print "Done/ you can perform some conditions and print useful info here"
print ""
Give permissions to the script and make the public directory writable
Access the script http://localhost/your-path-to-script.py
I was able to run this properly.
let me know if that's not your case if you want something else

Answer 3

In my case, I did this code.
<?php
chdir('/home/pythontest') ; // python code dir
$commandline="/usr/bin/python3 test.py parameter" ;
exec($commandline, $output, $error) ;
echo $output ;
?>
If you need to set some environments for python, add environment vars like this.
$commmandline="LANG=en_US.utf8 LC_ALL=en_US.utf8 /usr/bin/python3 ..." ;
and check the httpd log.

Answer 4

Check this:
The apache user has to be in sudoers file, better you don't give sudo to apache instead give apache (www-data) user right to run your python program
put first line in your python script: #!/usr/bin/env python so the script knows which program to open it with..
then,
change group:
chgrp www-data /path/to/python-script.py
make it executabe:
chmod +x /path/to/python-script.py
then try it:
shell_exec("/path/to/python-script.py");
I hope this will work! :)

Answer 5

You can also exec ffmpeg directly without python:
$output = shell_exec("/usr/bin/ffmpeg -i in.mp3 -b:a 96k out.mp3");
echo $output;
ffmpeg docs

Answer 6

Answered in 2022.
In php 8.0 and above the following method worked. Above answers are very useful but i am compiling few extra steps here.
PHP Code.
$output = shell_exec("python3 /var/www/python/test.py");
print_r($output);
exec('python3 --version 2>&1', $output);
var_dump($output);
Trying both shell_exe and exec
Make sure the python file has executable permission and added to www-data group (if its ubuntu/debian systems) . sudo chmod +x test.py and sudo chgrp www-data test.py
Make sure the php.ini has disabled_functions line commented or empty.
sudo vim sudo vim /etc/php/8.0/cli/php.ini
sudo vim sudo vim /etc/php/8.0/apache2/php.ini
For both.
I compiled a simple video to make sure others dont spend more time figuring out the problem. https://youtu.be/t-f6b71jyoM