PHP logic not working

[jhonny]

Hi Guys,

I'm trying to get iPXE working with PHP and MYQSL.

For some reason the PHP logic does not seem to be working.

I've got the following code in a php file that ipxe chain boots:
What its supposed to do is grab the serial number of the server and assign it to the variable: serversn

Code:

<?php
header("Content-type: text/plain");
echo "#!ipxe\n\n";

$serversn = "\${serial}";

The problem is when i then do:

Code:

echo $serversn;

The output will look something like this:

Code:

ABCDEFG

So the output is 7 alpha numeric characters long

however when i run:

Code:

echo strlen($serversn);

The output is equal to 9 !!!! instead of 7 !!!!

No idea why that is, so i tried to add some padding on either side of the $serversn variable by doing the following:

Code:

echo str_pad($serversn, 9, "X", STR_PAD_RIGHT);
echo $serversn;

The output should be: ABCDEFGXX
The output is still the original 7 alphanumeric characters: ABCDEF
Its only until that i change the str_pad parameter to 10 that one X will show up:

Code:

echo str_pad($serversn, 10, "X", STR_PAD_RIGHT);
echo $serversn;
OUTPUT is: ABCDEFGX

Can anyone advise what the heck is going on ? why is the count incorrect ?

---

I've also tried doing the following:

Code:

$serversn = substr($serversn,0,7);

That should cut the string contents of the $serversn variable to the first 7 characters.
Instead what happens is when i echo out $serversn, it returns the following:

Code:

${seria

The output is 7 characters long but the "value" of the variable is lost.

What is going on here ?