CLI script & exec() - how to control what gets dumped on the screen.

I have been trying to figure out how to use exec to run some commandline scripts (some perl scripts & mysql in this case) WITH the output of the commands run via exec being shown on the screen. neither of these examples have the desired effect: $output = array(); $exit = 0; exec('apache2ctl graceful', $output, $exit); $output = array(); $exit = 0; @exec('apache2ctl graceful', $output, $exit); please someone tell me there is a decent way to do this (something to do with STD input/output redirection or something?) and that I'm not left with trying something like: ob_start(); $output = array(); $exit1 = $exit2 = 0; @exec('apache2ctl graceful', $output, $exit1); ob_end_clean(); ... of which I don't even know if it would work. anyone care to share their clue?