OSX - How to add $PATH to Xampp PHP - php

Question

In my PHP file, I ran var_dump(exec('echo $PATH')); and got /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
Then I ran echo $PATHin terminal, I got /Library/PostgreSQL/9.6/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
How can't I add $PATH variable to Xampp?

Answer 1

Your $PATH represents folders that the system is already aware of, and can access the contents directly. That is all it does. This is a system level thing, not a PHP thing, but anything in your $PATH is already available to PHP.
You should be aware that Mac OSX and Linux both run on a UNIX command line, and it works exactly the same on both.
Say for example I have a directory like:
/usr/local/foobar
I want to use foobar for something. If it is not in my $PATH, then I have to access it with
/usr/local/foobar
If it is in my $PATH, then I can access it with
foobar
The $PATH is separated by : so if my $PATH is /usr/local:/usr/bin, then I have two folders that are known to the system automatically, being:
/usr/local
/usr/bin
And anything in those can be directly accessed.
If I want a list of them in PHP, I would use the following to get a list of the folders:
$path = explode(':', `echo $PATH`);
On the command line, you just do echo $PATH
If you need to add a new folder to it, you would do (from the command line) either:
export $PATH=$PATH:/path/to/new/folder
or
export $PATH=/path/to/new/folder:$PATH
I would use the first one if I want the new folder to be at the end of the results, which would be the case if I were overriding an existing value in it with something else I want it to use instead. I would use the second option if I want my new folder to be put at the beginning of the list.
DO NOT FORGET TO PREFIX OR SUFFIX THE NEW VALUE WITH $PATH, OR YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING YOU ALREADY HAD AND PROBABLY BORK YOUR SYSTEM
If you add stuff to the $PATH, you also need to source your .bashrc file to tell the system to reload the path and be aware of the changes, like this:
source ~/.bashrc
The reason your path is different, is because from the command line, you are seeing the $PATH for your user, and from the script, you are seeing the $PATH available to the user the webserver is running under. To resolve this, you have two options:
Run the webserver as your user (which is a bad idea for security reasons, so I'm not going to bother explaining how to do this)
Edit the .bashrc for the user that the webserver runs under (which is a better option)
First, in your script, you want to do
echo `whoami`;
This will tell you what user the webserver is running under.
You can then use sudo su webservername (use the value you got from the above command in place of webservername), then use the above export $PATH=... and source ~/.bashrc to fix the path of the webserver account as needed, then exit to go back to your own account, or just close the shell window. Then go back to your script and do
var_dump( explode(':', `echo $PATH`) );
and you should see the correct values (in addition to whatever other folders the webserver had that you do not on your own $PATH).
You can also use vim or vi to accomplish this, by doing
vi ~/.bashrc
and put one folder per line in that file, then save and close, and do source ~/.bashrc as you normally would to reload it. If you are not familiar with vim, use the export approach instead.