Extreme coding help

[shuban]

I'm trying to execute a program that converts documents into plain text.

http://silvercoders.com/en/products/doctotext/

I've tried contacting the developer, but offers no help. My test server is on my Windows PC:

I would like to run the program in PHP. Here's what I have so far

Code: [Select]

<?php

$location = 'C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\test_doc.docx';

$output = exec("C:\\doctotext\\doctotext.exe /c $location");

echo 'The output: '.$output;

?>
Could someone steer me in the right direction? There are absolutely no examples on the internet using this free, powerful program.

[SMFHacks]

You have to make sure the webserver has permission to execute the program doctotext.exe
You should give Apache access to that whole folder.

I would do this as well
$location = '"C:\\xampp\\htdocs\\test_doc.docx"';

[shuban]

I'm using XAMPP. Not sure how to do what you recommended. I wish I could get someone to try this out on their server, really stuck.

[shuban]

Good news, I got it working on my Windows based server:

Code: [Select]

<?php 

$file = 'C:\xampp\htdocs\SMF\sdsdssss.docx';

$content = exec( 'C:\xampp\htdocs\SMF\doctotext\doctotext.exe /c '. $file , $output );

echo 'output of the file after read by doctotex.exe: ' ;
echo nl2br("\n");
print_r( $output );

echo nl2br("\n");

$string = '';

foreach ( $output as $o ) {
    $string .= $o;
}

echo nl2br("\n");
However, how would I get this to work on my Centos server? Obviously I'd have to download the Linux version of the software, but how do the codes change?

[SMFHacks]

It would be a different path to binary file.

[shuban]

Please advice, I placed doctotext into:

Code: [Select]

/home/***/public_html/doctotext
and the file:

Code: [Select]

/home/***/public_html/downloads/test_doc.docx

[SMFHacks]

That would do it.
You would need to check the file permissions on doctext maybe try giving it 777

[shuban]

That would do it.
You would need to check the file permissions on doctext maybe try giving it 777

On the folder or the file itself? Should I do it recursively so that everything inside gets 777?

Code: [Select]

$file = '/home/***/public_html/downloads/test_doc.docx';

$content = exec( '/home/***/public_html/doctotext/doctotext \c '. $file , $output );
This didn't work...

[SMFHacks]

Make sure it is part of the same user group as apache/webserver
Also make sure the file has excute permissions.

The program for sure. Maybe the whole directory if it is saving information to that folder.

[shuban]

The owner and group is both root.

I tried making everything 777, didn't help.

How would I check logs for this? Do logs even exist?

[SMFHacks]

You could see if $content contains anything that is returned.

[shuban]

I checked and it doesn't return anything unforunately

[shuban]

The command is wrong. The fact I'm using /c means it's incorrect.

[shuban]

Do you have any other suggestions?

I asked this on Stack overflow, and got this response: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42967583/executing-a-linux-program-from-php/42970170?noredirect=1#comment73058411_42970170

I think I'm running out of ideas

[SMFHacks]

Not really stackoverflow is a good place though those people who reply to questions are experts.