Backtick Operator to Run Shell Command is Deprecated in PHP 8.5

PHP provides several functions for executing shell commands directly from a script. It also supports the backtick operator - known as the execution operator - which runs a command and returns its output so it can be printed or assigned to a variable.

Since PHP 8.5, backtick operator is deprecated. This means that the following code will issue a deprecation warning:

<?php

echo `curl https://httpbin.org/get`;

Example will output:

Deprecated: The backtick (`) operator is deprecated, use shell_exec() instead ...

The backtick operator works the same as shell_exec function, but its purpose is less obvious and can be harder to understand at a glance. In the previous example, a deprecation warning can be resolved as follows:

<?php

echo shell_exec('curl https://httpbin.org/get');