Run SASS from a PHP script in shared hosting environment

sass_compile.php

<?php
// run this gist to compile your SASS files in a shared hosting environment (I'm on Dreamhost)
// you must have SASS installed and running fine from the command line already http://sass-lang.com/
// this file will echo your success/failure, and if there's an error create a file detailing what it is

$descriptorspec = array(
   0 => array("pipe", "r"),  // stdin is a pipe that the child will read from
   1 => array("pipe", "w"),  // stdout is a pipe that the child will write to
   2 => array("file", "./error-output.txt", "a") // stderr is a file to write to
);

$process = proc_open('export GEM_HOME=path/to/your/gems; /path/to/sass scss/style.scss css/style.css', $descriptorspec, $pipes);

if (is_resource($process)) {
    // $pipes now looks like this:
    // 0 => writeable handle connected to child stdin
    // 1 => readable handle connected to child stdout
    // Any error output will be appended to /tmp/error-output.txt

    fwrite($pipes[0], 'hello world');
    fclose($pipes[0]);

    echo stream_get_contents($pipes[1]);
    fclose($pipes[1]);

    // It is important that you close any pipes before calling
    // proc_close in order to avoid a deadlock
    $return_value = proc_close($process);

    echo "command returned $return_value\n";
}
?>