PHP Exercises : Get the information about the OS PHP is running on

Last update on April 19 2025 11:49:41 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

26. Operating System Information

Write a PHP script to get the information about the operating system PHP is running on.

Sample Solution:

PHP Code:

<?php
// Get and echo the system name, version, and machine type using php_uname()
echo php_uname() . "\n";

// Echo the operating system PHP is running on
echo PHP_OS . "\n";

// Check if the operating system is Windows using the PHP_OS constant
if (strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0, 3)) === 'WIN') {
    echo 'This is a server using Windows!';
} else {
    echo 'This is a server not using Windows!' . "\n";
}
?>

Explanation:

• Get System Information:
• The php_uname() function retrieves information about the operating system PHP is running on, including the system name, version, and machine type.
• The result is output using echo, followed by a newline (\n).
• Output Operating System:
• PHP_OS is a predefined constant in PHP that returns the name of the operating system (e.g., Linux, WINNT).
• This value is echoed to display the operating system PHP is running on, followed by a newline.
• Check for Windows Operating System:
• The code checks if the operating system is Windows by using strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0, 3)) to get the first three letters of PHP_OS and convert them to uppercase.
• If the result equals 'WIN', it outputs 'This is a server using Windows!'.
• Otherwise, it outputs 'This is a server not using Windows!', followed by a newline.

Output:

Linux programming-editor 4.4.0-78-generic #99-Ubuntu SMP Thu Apr 27 
15:29:09 UTC 2017 x86_64                                            
Linux                                                               
This is a server not using Windows! 

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

• Write a PHP script to detect the operating system and display detailed information such as kernel version and architecture.
• Write a PHP script to output operating system details and verify compatibility with a set of predefined features.
• Write a PHP script to log the operating system information along with the PHP version for diagnostic purposes.
• Write a PHP script to conditionally execute code paths based on the detected operating system type.

PHP Code Editor:

Have another way to solve this solution? Contribute your code (and comments) through Disqus.

Previous: Write a PHP script to get the document root directory under which the current script is executing, as defined in the server's configuration file.
Next: Write a PHP script to print out all the credits for PHP.