Chapter 13. Working with the Server Environment

PHP, Apache, and MySQL are not the only applications on your machine, and there may come a time when you need to access those other applications from within your PHP code. In this chapter, you'll learn some techniques for running programs from within your PHP scripts.

In this chapter, you'll learn

• How to pipe data to and from external applications

• How to send shell commands and display results in the browser

By the Way

While the examples in this chapter are best suited for Linux/Unix users, the same principles hold true for Windows users.