php exec() function and different hosts

Question

I have a script that executes a file in a couple of directories down which looks like this:

exec(\"php-cli $file_path > /dev/null 2>/dev/null &\"); //p         


        

Answer 1

It depends on how the PHP-CLI binary is compiled. On most systems the executable is named just 'php' and I guess that the hosts that have 'php-cli' have it compiled by hand, while most of the others have it installed via the OS package manager.

You have two options to work around that and make it "universal":

1. On each of the servers, add an alias for one of them where needed, or make a symlink to the PHP executable somewhere (e.g. in your home directory).
2. Prior to executing, check which one of them exists (usually, it should be located in /usr/bin/) and set it to a variable.