store output of a passthru() in a variable?

[spoon|nexdot]

passthru("whois sitepointforums.com");

will spit out:

Whois Server Version 1.3 Domain names in the .com, .net, and .org domains can now be registered with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net for detailed information. Domain Name: SITEPOINTFORUMS.COM Registrar: ENOM, INC. Whois Server: whois.enom.com Referral URL: http://www.enom.com Name Server: NS2.RACKSPACE.COM Name Server: NS.RACKSPACE.COM Updated Date: 12-jul-2001 >>> Last update of whois database: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 05:40:16 EDT <<< The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and Registrars.

-----------------------------

I need to store that into a variable. Like say $info

$info = passthru("whois sitepointforums.com");

will only spit out the info again and not store anything in the variable, sicne passthru executes an external program.

Is there anyway to store the stuff passthru() spits out into a variable, and not have it spit out anything to the user?

[spoon|nexdot]

found a way to do it .

just incase anyone else needs to know:

<?  
unset($blah);
exec("whois sitepointforums.com", $blah);


for($i=0,$n=count($blah); $i<$n; $i++)
{
print "$i - $blah[$i]<br>";
}
?>

use that to see the whois. but in my case, i dont want to see it, so i used below:

<?
unset($blah);
exec("whois sitepointforums.com", $blah);
?>

Then, in my case, i just need to check $blah[6] (line 7) to check for either:

Domain Name:
No Match
or anything else

that would allow me to say that domain existed, it didnt, or i didnt get a clear answer.


I chose this over checkdnsr because it wasnt 100% accurate since some domains are registered and have NO DNS Entries.