What are the best practices for redirecting the output of a program started with PHP "exec" function to a file or another output stream to prevent PHP from running until the program ends?

When using the PHP "exec" function to run an external program, the output of the program is usually displayed directly in the browser or terminal. To redirect the output to a file or another stream, you can use output buffering and file handling techniques. This prevents PHP from waiting for the external program to finish before continuing execution. 

<?php
// Start output buffering
ob_start();

// Run the external program and redirect output to a file
exec('your_command_here > output.txt');

// Get the output and save it to a variable if needed
$output = ob_get_clean();

// Output the result to the browser or do further processing
echo $output;
?>

Keywords

PHP exec function output redirection file stream program execution

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