The popen() function opens a pipe. It can be used with fgets(), fgetss(), and fwrite(). The file pointer initiated by the popen() function must be closed with pclose().
Syntax
popen(command, mode)
Parameters
command − Set the command to be executed
mode − Set the mode, such as “r”, “w”, etc.
Return
The popen() function returns TRUE on success. It returns FALSE if an error occurs.
Example
<?php
// opening a pipe
$file_pointer = popen("/bin/ls", "r");
pclose($file_pointer);
?>Output
TRUE
Let us see another example.
Example
<?php
// opening a pipe
$file_pointer = popen("/executable/installer.exe", "r");
pclose($file_pointer);
?>Output
TRUE