Substitute for deprecated register_globals in php5 for updating path variables used by exec?

I am using php as a command line scripting language for executing various system commands.

The directive 'register_globals' is deprecated in PHP 5.3 and greater.

What is a clean way to update the PATH environment vari开发者_开发技巧able that is used by the exec command?

The following seems to throw away the value of PATH after the exec command finishes:

exec('PATH=$PATH:"' . $app_path .'"; export PATH' );

putenv() does this:

putenv('PATH=' . getenv('PATH') . ':' . $app_path);

You can get environment variables with getenv() and set them with putenv().

Besides getenv(), you can access it from $_SERVER["PATH"].

The $_ENV array is usually empty, due to the missing in E in the variables_order=GPCS configuration setting. (Has nothing to do with register_globals, but it's a related issue.)