shell_exec returns empty string

Question

When I execute my command in PHP with shell_exec it always returns an empty string. I tried shell_exec(\'ls -l\'); and it works. I put the command as

Answer 1

You may want to try " > file.txt 2>&1" at the end of your command. It will redirect the outputs to a separate file.

$command = "cmd command > outputs.txt 2>&1";
shell_execute($command);

You'll end up with a file that looks something like this:

b'cmd command output contents\r\n'