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phpbashgnomeshell-exec

PHP shell_exec won't work with gnome

In a terminal window running alert 9 gives me a popup saying 9

However, running alert 9 in shell_exec gives nothing.

What should I be aware of?

Just to mention: other commands work neither that interact with the GUI. I am using gnome 3.16.3

UPDATE

My concrete goal is to run an xdotool command using the gnome environment. ( xdotool key ctrl+shift+u )

Solution

  • alert is not a command, but an alias for notify-send. Aliases are loaded only in interactive shell, so it is not the best choice to test shel_exec.

    These 2 command work well with php-cli:

    $ php -r "shell_exec('notify-send 9');"
$ php -r "shell_exec('xdotool key ctrl+shift+u');"

    The first one pops the 9 in notification area, and the last one output underscored 'u'.

    Apache with mod_php is a daemon, subprocess of init, which knows nothing about xserver. If, for example, you run php built-in web server from a terminal within xserver like $ php -S 0:8080 it works as expected.