What do angled single quotes do?

Question

I've modified some code, pasted from elsewhere to suit my needs, but i stumbled upon these weird single quotes, and their output surprised me a lot

$test = `nslookup google.com`;
echo $test;

This actually performs an nslookup, without running doing anything but defining the variable, how is this possible?

See also [Reference - What does this symbol mean in PHP?](http://stackoverflow.com/q/3737139) — mario, Dec 10 '13 at 23:25

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 10 '13 at 23:52

3

They are called "Execution Operators", and they are actually not single quotes, but backticks.

You can read more here:

edited Dec 10 '13 at 23:52

halfer

answered Dec 10 '13 at 23:25

Jeppe

1 Answers1