note 56821 deleted from function.array by betz

Note Submitter: kbolino ---- Historically, PHP used the single-prime character (`) for shell commands. The command was treated like a string, except the value it represented was the entire resulting contents of standard output stream from the command. For example, <?php ls ?> would, on Unix-like systems, not return the string 'ls', but rather the output of the command. For those unfamiliar with Unix, ls is like DIR on MS-DOS; it lists the files in the current working directory. My guess would be that if no command of that name is found, then the string passed is returned. The performance issues come from PHP creating a shell process and attempting to execute the given command in it. In MySQL, the single-prime (`) is used for normal quotation, so that probably explains why phpMyAdmin might assume to use it for other things. I cannot find anything in the manual about the single-prime character's current use; there is probably a PHP.INI directive controlling its functionality now.