My question is whether or not Flex's fcsh can be called from within a PHP script. Here is the background:
I have been created a simple process that creates a simple quiz/tutorial by converting a text file into a .mxml file and compiling to a .swf file using the mxmlc compiler. This works well from the command line, but I wanted to make the process easier by creating a web-interface to do this. My initial attempts with PHP's exec() function have not worked. The Python scripts I use to create the .mxml file work fine (using exec()), but I have not been able to get the mxmlc compiler to work.
After searching on the Web and on this site, I believe that using fcsh (instead of mxmlc) may be the way to go. Using fcsh would certainly compile the .mxml file faster (after the first run), and I think that fcsh can be launched as a service that might be able to be called from PHP.
On the other hand, maybe I am approaching this the wrong way. Would it be better to write a Flex application that calls fcsh and avoid using PHP?
Edit: Using fcshctl as hasseg suggested in his answer below worked very well. Thanks Ali.
The problem with calling fcsh from within scripts is that it works as an interactive shell instead of taking command-line arguments, compiling, and returning an exit status. There are different ways to get around this, which I've listed in this blog post of mine, where I mainly talk about fcshctl (which is my own solution for this,) but at the bottom of the post I've also listed other similar solutions to get fcsh integrated into nonstandard build workflows.
There are a few other ways in php to execute an external script. They are exec(), passthru(), system(), and backticks i.e. the key to the left of the 1 key. Each one has a different purpose and return mechanism.
You may have to put the command that executes your executable into a script and call that script via one of these functions.
Is there a particular reason why you can't use mxmlc directly? It seems like it would be easier to call than fcsh. Just specify all your compiler options in a XML file run it like mxmlc -load-config path/to/config.xml. You can find an example of the XML configuration format in FLEX_HOME/frameworks/flex-config.xml.
Related
How can I access my php script from a Python script?
I need my Python script to be able to access the variables within the php script. (By the way, I'm new to php and Python.)
Thanks in advance.
If I understand it correctly, you have a service in PHP, and want to communicate with another one in Python.
Now, this is not really related to PHP or Python: this is quite a classic issue of integration and there are several ways to accomplish it; without more details about your problem, it may be very difficult to be specific about a solution and what kind of approach could be the better for you, but below you can find some ideas.
You could for instance save the status from PHP service in an ad-hoc table in the database, and then query it from the Python service.
Another way could be to use a RESTful approach: the information is available as a resource, accessible via a GET query; in PHP you would have a small handler that would just return a small JSON (or XML, if you like that kind of stuff), and in Python you would have instead the client. Of course, there are security issues to consider, but I think you got the idea.
For more information, I recommend you having a look at an interesting series written some time ago by Paul Stovell about integration. It is very accessible, and shows several approaches - although not all of them apply to your current issue.
Elaborate. Is the PHP file local? On a webserver? Where's the python file?
If the php file is on a server with the python file, use an exec statement.
If the python file is local and the php file is on a server, then you need to use urllib.
If both are local, write an interpreter...
I need to call a dll that returns a string using PHP.
What would be the best possible way to achieve this?
Build a PHP extension that wraps the DLL or create a wrapper (in any language) that can be accessed via shell with exec.
This is not possible using native PHP.
I would look into running an operating system level function to do this using exec(), like for example rundll.exe (for some kinds of DLLs).
If rundll can't do it (it has something to do with managed and unmanaged DLLs, I don't know what that means), the easiest way may be writing a wrapper application that imports the DLL, performs the necessary actions, and outputs the result.
Hello I have a couple questions about PHP exec() and passthru().
1)
I never used exec() in PHP but I have seen it is sometimes used with imagemagick. I am now curious, what is some other common uses where exec is good in a web application?
2)
About 6 years ago when I first started playing around with PHP I did not really know anything, just very basic stuff and I had a site that got compromised and someone setup there own PHP file that was using the passthru() function to pass a bunch of traffic throught my site to download free music or video and I got hit with a 4,000$ bandwidth charge from my host! 6 years later, I know soo much more about how to use PHP but I still don't know how this ever happened to me before. How can someone beable to add a file to my server through bad code?
1] Exec() is really useful when you:
A) Want to run a program/utility on the server that php doesn't have a command equivalent for. For example ffmpeg is common utility run via an exec call (for all sorts of media conversion).
B) Running another process - which you can block or NOT block on - that's very powerful. Sometimes you qant a pcnt_fork though, or similar, along with the correct CL args for non blocking.
C) Another example is when I have to process XSLT 2.0 - I have to exec() a small java service I have running to handle the transformations. Very handy. PHP doesn't support XSLT 2.0 transformations.
2] Damn that's a shame.
Well, lots of ways. Theres a family of vulnerability called, "remote file include vulns", that basically allow an attacker to include arbitrary source and thus execute it on your server.
Take a look at: http://lwn.net/Articles/203904/
Also, mentioned above, say your doing something like (Much simplified):
exec("someUnixUtility -f $_GET['arg1']");
Well, imagine the attacker does, url.come?arg1="blah;rm -rf /", your code will basically boil down to:
exec("someUnixUtility -f blah; rm -rf /");
Which in unix, you separate commands w/the ; So yeah - that could be a lot of damage.
Same with a file upload, imagine you strip the last four chars (.ext), to find the extension.
Well, what about something like this "exploit.php.gif", then you strip the extension, so you have exploit.php and you move it into your /users/imgs/ folder. Well, all the attacker has to do now is browse to users/imgs/exploit.php and they can run any code they want. You've been owned at that point.
Use exec or when you want to run a different program.
The documentation for passthru says:
Warning
When allowing user-supplied data to be passed to this function, use escapeshellarg() or escapeshellcmd() to ensure that users cannot trick the system into executing arbitrary commands.
Someone had probably found a security hole in your script which allowed them to run arbitrary commands. Use the given functions to sanitise your inputs next time. Remember, nothing sent from the client can ever be trusted.
exec() allows you to use compiled code that is on your server, which would run faster than php, which is interpreted.
So if you have a large amount of processing that needs to be done quickly, exec() could be useful.
Specifically, I need to automate the encoding of audio files into mp3 with LAME. You don't need to know LAME to answer this, I could be talking about svn or some other program..
I know how to use LAME on the command line to do this, for one file at a time.
I would like to do this via a php script however, so I can convert a bunch at once (for instance, all the files in a directory)
So what I am confused about, is how I should invoke the program, LAME. I could definitely use
shell_exec()
http://php.net/manual/en/function.shell-exec.php
But is that a "screwy" way to do it, since I am going through the shell?
Should I be using lame_enc.dll somehow instead, instead of lame.exe?
It seems like I could somehow do it with exec() also http://php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php
But in that case, how would I supply the arguments?
Or is there a better way to do it, maybe a .bat file? I am running windows
Should I be using lame_enc.dll instead of lame.exe somehow?
You can use exec() and specify arguments just like you would on the command line. Other options are outlined on the Program Execution manual page for PHP.
It's possible to do it with PHP. Not a typical use case scenario but it can be done. Since you are on Windows, a bat file would be better suited since then you don't need the PHP parser to run the script.
Put the same commands you would run in the console to convert your audio files with LAME in a *.bat. Then run the bat as if it was a regular executable file.
I am writing a small web server, nothing fancy, I basically just want to be able to show some files. I would like to use PHP though, and im wondering if just putting the php code inside of the html will be fine, or if I need to actually use some type of PHP library?
http://www.adp-gmbh.ch/win/misc/webserver.html
I just downloaded that and I am going to use that to work off of. Basically I am writing a serverside game plugin that will allow game server owners to access a web control panel for their server. Some features would be possible with PHP so this is my goal. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
The PHP won't serve itself. What happens in a web server like Apache is before the PHP is served to the user it is passed through a PHP parser. That PHP parser reads, understands and executes anything between (or even ) tags depending on configuration. The resultant output, usually still HTML, is served by the web server.
There are a number of ways to achieve this. Modules to process PHP have been written by Apache but you do not have to use these. PHP.exe on windows, installed from windows.php.net, will do this for you. Given a PHP file as an argument it will parse the PHP and spit the result back out on the standard output.
So, one option for you is to start PHP.exe from within your web server with a re-directed standard output to your program, and serve the result.
How to create a child process with re-directed IO: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682499%28VS.85%29.aspx however, you won't be writing the child process, that'll be PHP.exe
Caveat: I am not sure from a security / in production use perspective if this is the most secure approach, but it would work.
PHP needs to be processed by the PHP runtime. I'm assuming the case you're talking about is that you have a C++ server answering HTTP queries, and you want to write PHP code out with the HTML when you respond to clients.
I'm not aware of any general-purpose PHP library. The most straightforward solution is probably to use PHP as a CGI program.
Here's a link that might be useful for that: http://osdir.com/ml/php-general/2009-06/msg00473.html
This method is nice because you don't need to write the HTML+PHP out to a file first; you can stream it to PHP.
You need execute the PHP page to serve the page it generates.
The easiest thing for you to do would be to add CGI support to your webserver in some basic form. This is non-trivial, but not too difficult. Basically you need to pass PHP an environment and input, and retrieve the output.
Once you have CGI support you can just use any executable, including PHP, to generate webpages.