Export environment variable from PHP, for use by exec()'d shell command?
- by anonymous coward
Somewhat similar to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2002970/export-a-variable-from-php-to-shell, but my problem is different.
I am forced to work with a program that gets an important location variable from an Environment Variable (Linux), rather than a config or, better, a command line option.
I have to call this program from within PHP, and currently am doing it like so:
shell_exec('/path/to/program option1 option2');
I need to be able to set/override the environment variable that program will be looking for. As an example, this does not work:
shell_exec('VAR1=foo /path/to/program option1 option2');
nor does:
shell_exec('VAR1=foo; export foo; /path/to/program option1 option2');
for good measure.
Both of the above command lines work "as expected" from the shell.
Is it possible to override environment variables for programs called via exec, shell_exec, etc?