Running php as a sub process

Question

I need to call a PHP script from within python. I found this thread on StackOverflow:

So I use this exact method to call my php script. However, I get the following error:

php is not recognised as an internal or external command

First I figured it was because php wasn't in my PATH environment variable, so added it and it worked in my command line, but my Python script kept returning the same error. I also tried adding php to my PYTHONPATH, with the same result. I finally even tried to put the php file in the folder where the php executable is located, but this also didn't work.

What do I need to change in order for this to work?

EDIT

My operating system is Windows 7. This is the code I'm using:

proc = subprocess.Popen("php C:/xampp/htdocs/test/test.php", shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
script_response = proc.stdout.read()

I didn't try to run my python script from my command line, which does not produce the error and executes the php script. The script_response variable is empty however.

This is the last line of my test.php file:

return $aResult;

I checked the $aResult, it does contain a value so it's not returning properly. Do I need something else in my php script instead of return ?

(i suppose that you are under Microsoft operating system) Add PHP to your environment variable permanently, then start a new command line and launch your python script — Halayem Anis
– Halayem Anis, Commented Oct 29, 2014 at 15:43
return in a PHP process will go to the bit-bucket, because there's no PHP process to read that internal stream. If you need to read it with something else (in this case: Python), send it to its STDOUT (in other words: echo or print the value). — Wrikken
– Wrikken, Commented Oct 29, 2014 at 16:02

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:05:38Z

2

You could use json to exchange data between processes. Replace return $result in the php script with:

echo json_encode($result);

And in Python:

import json
from subprocess import check_output

result = json.loads(check_output(["php", "/path/to/test.php"]).decode('utf-8'))

If php is not found then read this explanation about how Windows searches for executables.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:05

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answered Oct 29, 2014 at 16:52

jfs

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Comments

seane · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-29 16:12:37Z

0

You may have to use the full path to PHP instead of simply calling php.

If you're using a Unix system, you can find the full path by typing which php into your terminal, and that should return something like /usr/bin/php. On Windows, I think you can type where php.exe to find the full path.

Then in your Python script you can do:

# Run PHP script
command = "/full/path/to/php /path/to/myscript.php"
process = subprocess.Popen(command, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
response = process.stdout.read()
# Print response from PHP script
print response

edited Oct 29, 2014 at 16:12

answered Oct 29, 2014 at 16:03

seane

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