Putenv() is saving quotes?

PHP
1

Hello,

I am having some very unexpected results while trying to create a custom CLI using PHP. Let’s forgo any “Why would you do that?” questions for the moment. :wink:


$cmd = 'FOO="bar"';
putenv($cmd);

//this is actually defined in a class
function _($cmd, $returnType = RET_OBJECT) {
        $d['output'] = '';
        $d['error'] = '';
        $descriptorspec = array(0 => array('pipe','r'),
                                1 => array('pipe','w'),
                                2 => array('pipe','w'));
        $process = proc_open($cmd,$descriptorspec,$pipes);
        if (is_resource($process)) {

            //fwrite($pipes[0]);
            fclose($pipes[0]);

            $d['output'] = stream_get_contents($pipes[1]);
            fclose($pipes[1]);

            $d['error'] = stream_get_contents($pipes[2]);
            fclose($pipes[2]);

            proc_close($process);
        } else {
            Er::ror('Could not open process.',0);  //custom error class
        }
        echo 'test output: '.$d['output'];   //just for testing, but returns the same as the returned object
        return Util::convertData($d,$returnType);   //custom data converter
}

//the problem (don't use return object. instead, utilize the test echo statement):
_('echo "this is my foo${FOO}"');
// test output: this is my foo"bar"

I can’t figure out why the quotes are carrying over! I tried changed the double quotes to singles. I have tried double quoting. My last resort is to create a bash script on the fly and import it. I am confused. Any thoughts?

2

Small update after a bit more research. I’m pretty sure this is a fundamental UNIX issue and I’m just not understanding, but I think something is quoting my environment variables automatically. I tried:


//this will output as expected without quotes.
$cmd = 'FOO=bar and bar'; 

//if i set up another environment variable and try to use it in another environment variable, it treats it as a string. is this even possible?
$cmd2 = 'BAR=you like my ${FOO}'
// when i echo $BAR it comes out with:  test output: you like my ${FOO}

I’ve tried single/double quoting those strings as well, with/without curly braces to no avail. :frowning: