PHP Show CMD Command Prompt Window (Windows)

Question

Usually, you would want to hide the CMD window. In my case, I'll be doing some tests with PHP+CLI. It will be mighty useful if PHP could be made to launch a CLI popup. But alas, I can't find a way to make it to.

The following command should have made it work, but it doesn't:

START "PHP AE2" CMD /K DIR

The PHP code in question is based on proc_open():

$proc=proc_open($cmd,array(
    0=>array('pipe','r'), // STDIN
    1=>array('pipe','w'), // STDOUT
    2=>array('pipe','w')  // STDERR
),$pipes);
// ....some stream stuff....
$return=proc_close($proc);

Although the command runs fine, the popup doesn't show up. I suspect this is a feature of Apache. Is there a way to completely detach the CMD from its parent?

Also, I'll be substituting DIR with a small script/batch/program that initializes the environment, so it is important that I can execute a program after the popup shows up.

(This is mostly for educational purposes and won't follow into production.)

The `/B` option suppresses opening a window, so cmd would be running in the context of your webserver or whatever's calling the 'start' command. — Marc B, May 30 '11 at 14:51
@MarcB - Ah, sorry, I meant to remove that one (slipped out from testing). The issue is still there. — Christian, May 30 '11 at 14:54

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 24 '11 at 14:26

I am bit late to answering this question, but to help close this question here is my answer.

The command is correct but you need to get Apache to interact with the desktop. If you are on a windows machine, just go to services, find Apache and make sure you tick the "Allow Service to Interact with desktop" checkbox.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 01 '16 at 16:25

Here is a project that allows PHP to obtain and interact dynamically with a real cmd terminal. Get it here: https://github.com/merlinthemagic/MTS

After downloading you would simply use the following code:

//if you prefer Powershell, replace 'cmd' with 'powershell'
$shellObj    = \MTS\Factories::getDevices()->getLocalHost()->getShell('cmd');

//you might need to ad php to the system environment variable
$strCmd1   = 'START "seq" cmd /c "PHP AE2"';
$return1   = $shellObj->exeCmd($strCmd1);

You can issue any command you like against the $shellObj, the environment is maintained throughout the life of the PHP script. So instead of bundling commands in a script file, just issue them one by one using the exeCmd() method, that way you can also handle the return and any exceptions.

PHP Show CMD Command Prompt Window (Windows)

2 Answers2