This DevX tutorial shows you how to use a unix-based shell in PHP in three different environments (using three different tools) on Windows.

This article discusses how to install and configure three Bash distributions for Windows: the GNU BASH shell for Windows, the Win-Bash Windows port, and the Cygwin tool. It also demonstrates how to execute Bash scripts using PHP, how to send different types of arguments to a Bash script, how to use Bash functions from PHP, and how to save results to a text file.

They start with the Windows installs using the GNU Bash shell for Windows, Cygwin and Win-Bash with a healthy dose of code thrown in between. Examples include both the bash scripting and PHP script sides to push the output of the commands into local text files.