Problems with a PHP shell script: "Could not open input file"

Question

Ok, I am trying to create an email logger, that uses a PHP shell script. I have set up CPanel to pipe emails to my script. I am sure this is all configured properly. However I am having problems with the script, well any script for that matter when running it from the shell.

here is an example.

#!/usr/local/bin/php –q
<?php

/* Read the message from STDIN */
$fd = fopen("php://stdin", "r");
$email = ""; // This will be the variable holding the data.
while (!feof($fd)) {
$email .= fread($fd, 1024);
}
fclose($fd);
/* Saves the data into a file */
$fdw = fopen("mail.txt", "w+");
fwrite($fdw, $email);
fclose($fdw);
/* Script End */
?>

Real simple, right? Read from STDIN and write to a file...I thought something was wrong, not able to read STDIN for some reason. Hosting provider allows it, allow_url_open and allow_url_include are both on.

When executing the script via SSH I get the following error: Could not open input file: âq

So once again I thought that was the script telling me, that is could not read from STDIN

So I tried just a simple script.

#!/usr/local/bin/php –q
<?php
echo 'Hello World';
?>

Same thing: Could not open input file: âq

So it appears that the PHP program is telling me it is unable to open the script? The script is located in $HOME/mail/forward (CHMOD 755) and the script itself is CHMOD 755, as well the file mail.txt is CHMOD 755 I am really stumped on this.

Answer 1

I just experienced this issue and it was because I was trying to run a script from the wrong directory.. doh! It happens to the best of us.

Answer 2

Have you tried:

#!/usr/local/bin/php

I.e. without the -q part? That's what the error message "Could not open input file: -q" means. The first argument to php if it doesn't look like an option is the name of the PHP file to execute, and -q is CGI only.

EDIT: A couple of (non-related) tips:

1. You don't need to terminate the last block of PHP with ?>. In fact, it is often better not to.
2. When executed on the command line, PHP defines the global constant STDIN to fopen("php://stdin", "r"). You can use that instead of opening "php://stdin" a second time: $fd = STDIN;

Answer 3

Windows Character Encoding Issue

I was having the same issue. I was editing files in PDT Eclipse on Windows and WinSCPing them over. I just copied and pasted the contents into a nano window, saved, and now they worked. Definitely some Windows character encoding issue, and not a matter of Shebangs or interpreter flags.

Answer 4

When you use php CLI argument -q doesn't exist.

I had the same problem when I wrote script in the Windows (eclipse) and I tried run them on Linux. Every line in file from Windows is ended by \r\n. I had to delete \r in first line that contained parser path:

When \r was deleted from first line (mcedit shown \r as ^M) script ran correctly.