PHP Reference

escapeshellarg

(PHP 4 >= 4.0.3, PHP 5)

escapeshellarg -- escape a string to be used as a shell argument

Description

string escapeshellarg ( string arg)

escapeshellarg() adds single quotes around a string and quotes/escapes any existing single quotes allowing you to pass a string directly to a shell function and having it be treated as a single safe argument. This function should be used to escape individual arguments to shell functions coming from user input. The shell functions include exec(), system() and the backtick operator. A standard use would be:


<?php

system('ls '.escapeshellarg($dir));

?>