Alternate to PHP exec() function

Question

Currently I am using:

exec("zcat $filename", $output)

To uncompress a .Z type file but unfortunately my hosting company has now disabled this function.

Is there a workaround?

$pathtofile = "filename.lis.Z";
exec("zcat $pathtofile", $output);

Answer 1

do this

echo ini_get("disable_functions");

to know if you are able to use one of the following:

system(); exec(); passthru(); shell_exec();

but if it's a shared hosting all the above are for sure blocked and you will have to find an alternative

Answer 2

.Z files are LZW compression. If you can't run shell commands on your host, you can use an LZW PHP library. Here are two:

• web wonders
• php-lzw

Answer 3

system($shell_command, $response_var);

So in your case:

system("zcat $filename", $output);