PHP shell_exec() vs exec()

I'm struggling to understand the difference between shell_exec() and exec()...

I've always used exec() to execute server side commands, when would I use shell_exec()?

Is shell_exec() just a shorthand for exec()? It seems to be the same thing with fewer parameters.

shell_exec returns all of the output stream as a string. exec returns the last line of the output by default, but can provide all output as an array specifed as the second parameter.

See

• http://php.net/manual/en/function.shell-exec.php
• http://php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php

Here are the differences. Note the newlines at the end.

> shell_exec('date')
string(29) "Wed Mar  6 14:18:08 PST 2013\n"
> exec('date')
string(28) "Wed Mar  6 14:18:12 PST 2013"

> shell_exec('whoami')
string(9) "mark\n"
> exec('whoami')
string(8) "mark"

> shell_exec('ifconfig')
string(1244) "eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 10:bf:44:44:22:33  \n          inet addr:192.168.0.90  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0\n          inet6 addr: fe80::12bf:ffff:eeee:2222/64 Scope:Link\n          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1\n          RX packets:16264200 errors:0 dropped:1 overruns:0 frame:0\n          TX packets:7205647 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0\n          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 \n          RX bytes:13151177627 (13.1 GB)  TX bytes:2779457335 (2.7 GB)\n"...
> exec('ifconfig')
string(0) ""

Note that use of the backtick operator is identical to shell_exec().

Update: I really should explain that last one. Looking at this answer years later even I don't know why that came out blank! Daniel explains it above -- it's because exec only returns the last line, and ifconfig's last line happens to be blank.

shell_exec - Execute command via shell and return the complete output as a string

exec - Execute an external program.

The difference is that with shell_exec you get output as a return value.

A couple of distinctions that weren't touched on here:

• With exec(), you can pass an optional param variable which will receive an array of output lines. In some cases this might save time, especially if the output of the commands is already tabular.

Compare:

exec('ls', $out);
var_dump($out);
// Look an array

$out = shell_exec('ls');
var_dump($out);
// Look -- a string with newlines in it

Conversely, if the output of the command is xml or json, then having each line as part of an array is not what you want, as you'll need to post-process the input into some other form, so in that case use shell_exec.

It's also worth pointing out that shell_exec is an alias for the backtic operator, for those used to *nix.

$out = `ls`;
var_dump($out);

exec also supports an additional parameter that will provide the return code from the executed command:

exec('ls', $out, $status);
if (0 === $status) {
    var_dump($out);
} else {
    echo "Command failed with status: $status";
}

As noted in the shell_exec manual page, when you actually require a return code from the command being executed, you have no choice but to use exec.