Hi Wez,

Have you got a chance to look this over?

I can see the need for this kind of thing, but I'm not so sure about
the implementation.
It's also important to consider backward compatibility and security
before adjusting this function.

Needs some brains on it; mine is currently occupied, but I'll try and
think on it over the next week.

--Wez.

Here's a patch, which logic is pretty simple:

1st try to invoke without CMD.EXE (this will work for executable
files), and if that fails - invoke with CMD.EXE.
Shouldn't be too much of a burden for the CPU, but saves memory.
It also allows to kill processes later, which wouldn't happen if
CMD.EXE would wrap the child process - only CMD.EXE would be killed.

Also, attached the patch in text file form since gmail might screw
some characters.

---

Index: php-src/ext/standard/proc_open.c

RCS file: /repository/php-src/ext/standard/proc_open.c,v
retrieving revision 1.30
diff -u -p -w -r1.30 proc_open.c
--- php-src/ext/standard/proc_open.c 10 Nov 2004 19:47:15 -0000 1.30
+++ php-src/ext/standard/proc_open.c 14 Nov 2004 10:45:56 -0000
@@ -729,23 +729,30 @@ PHP_FUNCTION(proc_open)
}

•   if (suppress_errors) {
  

•           old_error_mode = SetErrorMode(SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS|SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX);
  

•   }
  

•   memset(&pi, 0, sizeof(pi));
  

•   // Try invoking without CMD first
  

•   newprocok = CreateProcess(NULL, command, &security, &security, TRUE,
  

NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, env.envp, cwd, &si, &pi);

•   if (newprocok == FALSE)
  

•   {
  

•           // If failed - invoke with CMD
    command_with_cmd = emalloc(command_len + sizeof(COMSPEC_9X) + 1 +
  

sizeof(" /c "));
sprintf(command_with_cmd, "%s /c %s", GetVersion() < 0x80000000 ?
COMSPEC_NT : COMSPEC_9X, command);

•   if (suppress_errors) {
  

•           old_error_mode = SetErrorMode(SEM_FAILCRITICALERRORS|SEM_NOGPFAULTERRORBOX);
  

•   }
  

•   newprocok = CreateProcess(NULL, command_with_cmd, &security,
  

&security, TRUE, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, env.envp, cwd, &si, &pi);

•           efree(command_with_cmd);
  

•   }
  

•   if (suppress_errors) {
            SetErrorMode(old_error_mode);
    }
  

•   efree(command_with_cmd);
  

•   if (FALSE == newprocok) {
            php_error_docref(NULL TSRMLS_CC, E_WARNING, "CreateProcess failed");
            goto exit_fail;