php5 security setting?

[nshenry03]

I'm trying to use exec() to convert a .doc to a .html using abiword but the output is garbled (strange characters) (it works when running the same command from the server itself). I was wondering if there was a security setting that I need to look into, or if maybe the document isn't fully uploaded before the conversion begins (If so, how do I make sure that it is fully uploaded first)

Sorry, I'm modifying some older code that is above my skill, but I would like to get this function to work.

 $this->_convertFileTypes = array(".doc" => "abiword --to={TARGET} {SOURCE}");

 function convert()
    {
        GLOBAL $settings;

        if (file_exists($settings->_contentDir . $this->_dir . "index.html"))
            return true;

        if (!in_array($this->_fileType, array_keys($settings->_convertFileTypes)))
            return false;

        $source = $settings->_contentDir . $this->_dir . $this->getFileName();
        $target = $settings->_contentDir . $this->_dir . "index.html";
    //  $source = str_replace("/", "\\", $source);
    //  $target = str_replace("/", "\\", $target);

        $command = $settings->_convertFileTypes[$this->_fileType];
        $command = str_replace("{SOURCE}", "\"$source\"", $command);
        $command = str_replace("{TARGET}", "$target", $command);

        $output = array();
        $res = 0;
        exec($command, $output, $res);

        $myFile = "/mydms/content/log/testFile.txt";
        $fh = fopen($myFile, 'a') or die("can't open file");
        fwrite($fh, $command);
        fwrite($fh, $res);
        fclose($fh);


        if ($res != 0)
        {
            print (implode("\n", $output));
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }

 

[nshenry03]

sorry, using:
PHP 5.1.6
Apache 2.0.55
AbiWord 2.4.5