exec() executes the given command.
The command that will be executed.
If the output argument is present, then the specified array will be filled with every line of output from the command. Trailing whitespace, such as \n, is not included in this array. Note that if the array already contains some elements, exec() will append to the end of the array. If you do not want the function to append elements, call unset() on the array before passing it to exec().
If the return_var argument is present along with the output argument, then the return status of the executed command will be written to this variable.
The last line from the result of the command. If you need to execute a command and have all the data from the command passed directly back without any interference, use the passthru() function.
To get the output of the executed command, be sure to set and use the output parameter.
If a program is started with this function, in order for it to continue running in the background, the output of the program must be redirected to a file or another output stream. Failing to do so will cause PHP to hang until the execution of the program ends.
<?php
// outputs the username that owns the running php/httpd process
// (on a system with the "whoami" executable in the path)
echo exec('whoami');
?>
system() -
Please login to continue.