11

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

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6
  • I have also tried other solution available on the stackoverflow. they all works to print "Hello World" but not work for my above script. Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:11
  • You environment will be different when running inside a bash shell for example compared to shell_exec. If you know which environment variables are missing you can use putenv("VARIABLE=value"); to set them via the PHP script. Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:14
  • try adding logging, and proper coding pracices by putting your code into a function that you invoke & catch occuring exceptions that you then log. Test by provoking an error so you verify that the logging works. Then try it out through PHP Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 15:17
  • yes. I this is due to missing environment variables. but I don't know how to set them from PHP Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 6:55
  • I have tried putenv('PATH=/usr/bin/ffmpeg:$PATH which ffmpeg'); but it is not working Commented Mar 1, 2018 at 7:39

6 Answers 6

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4
+50

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 );
}
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2 Comments

Thanks for your answer. I have tried your suggestion but it is not working
@Rajinder That implies a typo or something else awry with your setup. This is well-known paradigm, and I have just tested again to confirm it works. If the community is going to help, you will need to provide more information. "It is not working" is not a useful response. How is it not working? What did you actually try? What error messages did you receive?
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:

  1. enable python CGI in apache ( or in the web server you are using ).
  2. put the script in CGI configured directory
  3. 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 ""
  1. Give permissions to the script and make the public directory writable
  2. 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

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3 Comments

Thanks for your answer. My requirement is run python script from PHP. because my main app in PHP but I want to run some script from python
@Rajinder, I have edited my post with the working PHP code please check and do let me know if you face any problem.
@Rajinder, did you get a chance to check my updated answer?
2

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.

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1 Comment

Thanks for your answer. I have tried your suggestion but it is not working
1

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! :)

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1 Comment

Thanks for your answer. I have tried your suggestion but it is not working
0

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

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0

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

  1. 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

  2. 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

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