Please try using this CVS snapshot:

  http://snaps.php.net/php5.2-latest.tar.gz
 
For Windows (zip):
 
  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php5.2-win32-latest.zip

For Windows (installer):

  http://snaps.php.net/win32/php5.2-win32-installer-latest.msi

Thank you for the quick response.  The new version still shows no STDERR output from a cmd.exe window.

Thanks

C:\php5.2fix>php test_exec.php
Two exec statements:
-------------------
This exec should result in error for non-existant dir:
Array
(
)
-----------------------
This exec works:
--------------------
Array
(
    [0] =>  Volume in drive C is LOCAL DISK
    [1] =>  Volume Serial Number is 4054-8345
    [2] =>
    [3] =>  Directory of C:\php5.2fix
    [4] =>
    [5] => 07/03/2007  08:08 AM            32,821 php.exe
    [6] =>                1 File(s)         32,821 bytes
    [7] =>                0 Dir(s)  58,549,849,088 bytes free
)

C:\php5.2fix>
C:\php5.2fix>type test_exec.php
<?php
echo "Two exec statements:\n-------------------\n";
echo "This exec should result in error for non-existant dir:\n";
exec("cd c:\\non_existant", $err);
print_r($err);
echo "-----------------------\n";
echo "This exec works:\n--------------------\n";
exec("dir php.exe", $ary);
print_r($ary);
?>

This works fine with *nix (found from the user comments at
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php :

<?php

$com= "ls foo";

exec("$com 2>&1", $out, $err);

var_dump($out);

?>

I don't know if Windows supports something like this, but iirc, it should.

>Oddly, 5.2.2+ versions still work correctly with cygwin/bash 3.1
Using the same Win32 binary, not a Cygwin binary.

To jani@php.net:  That is a good suggestion for just getting STDERR output and I use it often on Unix and Linux systems when I need, and don't care if outputs are mixed.  I haven't tested if this construct works with W32.  Unfortunately, I need STDIN and STDERR separate.

I also have a question:  Did the version of compiler or libraries used to compile the binary change? MS is notorious for making undocumented changes to their development tools.

Thanks,
Chip Keefer

Since this is actually improvement from previous behaviour where the output was mixed, I'm changing this to a FR. I'll look into adding an extra parameter to store STDERR in. In the meantime I suggest you use proc_open() or popen() which give you more control over these..

I don't actually see how this is an improvement as output was only mixed if you don't redirect, which is expected.  If I do something like php progname.php > logfile.txt, I would previously redirect STDIN to the logfile as expected and stderr would still come to the console so I could monitor the program's progress.  This is the usual behavior in shell programs, etc.  This is how cmd line php was working through version 5.21.  5.22 on changed behavior in that from Win32, the STDERR disappears completely.  If you can tell me where STDERR went and how to get to it from exec, I will happily do that.  I have hundreds (if not thousands) of php scripts that do this.  This new behavior breaks all of them.  If I do php progname.php 2>&1 > logfile.txt, even if this works, I get mixed STDIN and STDERR output in the logfile.txt.  This will force me to either stay at version 5.21 or earlier, or revise every script we have that currently uses the exec function.

Again I ask: Did anything change with the compiler or other development tools used to create the Window Binary?  Microsoft has been known to modify libraries in undocumented ways.

Thanks
Chip Keefer

As I'm not any win32 expert (nor really care about it) I'll deassign this and forget that change, perhaps someone else who know the win32 stuff picks this up.

Assigned to the Windows port maintainer.

This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.

Fixed in 5.3+