Question

How can I start and stop PHP dev server with exec() function? I need to do this in order to automate my BDD tests.

This stops execution of my script:

echo exec('php -S localhost:8000');

So I need a way to start the server from PHP and be able to continue executing my test. And then I also need a way to stop it from PHP.

Answer 1

This works:

private function _startDevelopmentServer($pidfile)
{
    $cmd = 'cd ../../public && php -S 127.0.0.1:8027 index.php';
    $outputfile = '/dev/null';
    shell_exec(sprintf("%s > %s 2>&1 & echo $! >> %s", $cmd, $outputfile, $pidfile));
    sleep(1);
}

private function _killDevelopmentServer($pidfile)
{
    if (file_exists($pidfile)) {
        $pids = file($pidfile);
        foreach ($pids as $pid) {
            shell_exec('kill -9 ' . $pid);
        }
        unlink($pidfile);
    }
}