PHP's passthru() vs shell_exec()
<p>The function <code>passthru()</code> is good when the output contains binary data as the function outputs the raw output. However, the documentation for the function <code>shell_exec()</code> does not say whether the data returned is binary safe (=raw).</p>

<p>So, my question here is that does <code>shell_exec()</code> return the <strong>raw</strong> output? Or do I need to use <code>ob_start()</code>, <code>ob_get_contents()</code> and <code>ob_end_clean()</code> with <code>passthru()</code> to get the raw output?</p>
