Re: a PHP script works fine when called from the browser but not as a shell script

In our last episode,
<1135207950.627575.190780@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, the
lovely and talented lawrence k broadcast on comp.lang.php:

> Andy Hassall wrote:
>> On 21 Dec 2005 09:06:53 -0800, "lawrence k" <lkrubner@geocities.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >However, I need for this script to get called every 15 minutes. So I
>> >set it up as a cron job. And cron doesn't like calling this thing. Cron
>> >is nice enough to send me an email with an error message. Every 15
>> >minutes I get this:
>> >
>> >/home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/makeRss.php: line 1: ?php:
>> >No such fil
>>
>> You seem to be trying to run the .php file directly. This won't work; you
>> either need a #! line at the beginning, or you need to run it via PHP.
>>
>> So either:
>>
>> #!/path/to/php
>>
>> as the first line, which will mess things up when it's run via the web, or

> I ran phpinfo() to find out the path, and this is the info I got:

> PATH /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

> _SERVER["PATH"] /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

> _SERVER["PATH_TRANSLATED"] /home/httpd/vhosts/autostratus.com/httpdocs/info.php

> _ENV["PATH"] /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin

> I'm sorry I know so little about shell scripts, but I can't figure from
> this what the address in the first line should be. Is it like this:

> #!/sbin/php

run
which php

That returns (in FreeBSD, will almost certainly vary in other
unices):

/usr/local/bin/php

That's what goes in the she-bang line:
#!/usr/local/bin/php

("She-bang" is an informal expression for #!).

This works for many kinds of scripts etc. in other languages,
such as perl, various shells, etc.

However, others have pointed out, php is not entirely unbroken
in this regard, and it would be more convenient for you if you
only had one version of each script, so the better option for
you is to run php from chron with your script as an argument.

-- 
Lars Eighner         usenet@larseighner.com         http://www.larseighner.com/
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