Passing GET variables to shell_exec in PHP

Question

I'm trying to run a shell script in PHP on my server that use youtube-dl to download a video. My code look like this:

<form action="download.php" method="get">
<input type="text" name="link"><br>
<input type="submit">
</form>

and my download.php look like this:

<?php
$link = escapeshellarg($GET["link"]);
$output = shell_exec('/Applications/MAMP/cgi-bin/youtube-dl ' .$link. ' 2>&1');
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";
?>

So when I insert a link in my form, it should pass the link to the shell_exec and run the command with this link, but what I got is this:

Usage: youtube-dl [OPTIONS] URL [URL...]

youtube-dl: error: You must provide at least one URL.

Which means that command didn't received the link from GET. How can I solve this?

Answer 1

GET-parameters are accessed via $_GET-variable. Notice the underscore before the "GET".

http://php.net/manual/en/reserved.variables.get.php

Answer 2

Change

$link = escapeshellarg($GET["link"]);

to

$link = escapeshellarg(urldecode($_GET["link"]));

and make sure you are getting url in $_GET["link"]

Answer 3

Try this one

shell_exec("/Applications/MAMP/cgi-bin/youtube-dl {$link} 2>&1");