7.4. System Calls

Sometimes PHP will not have the function you need to perform a certain action, but the operating system it is running on may. In such cases, you can use the exec system call to do the job.

For example, to quickly view the contents of the current directory, you can use a program such as Example 7-17. If you are on a Windows system, it will run as-is using the Windows dir command. On Linux, Unix, or Mac OS X, comment out or remove the first line and uncomment the second to use the ls system command. You may wish to type this program in, save it as exec.php and call it up in your browser.