system Execute an external program and display the output &reftitle.description; stringsystem stringcommand intreturn_var system is just like the C version of the function in that it executes the given command and outputs the result. If a variable is provided as the second argument, then the return status code of the executed command will be written to this variable. &warn.escapeshell; ¬e.exec-bg; The system call also tries to automatically flush the web server's output buffer after each line of output if PHP is running as a server module. Returns the last line of the command output on success, and &false; on failure. 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. '; // Outputs all the result of shellcommand "ls", and returns // the last output line into $last_line. Stores the return value // of the shell command in $retval. $last_line = system('ls', $retval); // Printing additional info echo '

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Last line of the output: ' . $last_line . '

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Return value: ' . $retval; ?> ]]> ¬e.exec-path; &warn.sm.exec; See also exec, passthru, popen, escapeshellcmd, pcntl_exec, and the backtick operator.