howto: include cgi exe-file output in php file??

[etty]

I have an exe file that can return a html-page, through content-type: text/html etc. However I want it to pass information to be included in a php-file so that the information can be further processed and stored in a mysql database.
I've tried include(), exec() and system() in different combinations but whithout success

Can anyone tell me...
1) how to write the output-part of the exe-file?
2) how to write php-code that can collect this output for further processing?

Any hints would make my day...

[etty]

Can't anyone help me please?
Or at least suggest another place to post this problem...