# RFC: Deprecate backtick operator

- Status: Inactive
- Authors: WesNetmo
- Date: 2018-02-11
- Version: 42.0.0-epsilon
- Original: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/deprecate-backtick-operator
- Page: https://externals.io/rfc/deprecate-backtick-operator
- More for agents: search with https://externals.io/search.md?q={query} · RFCs at https://externals.io/rfc.md · JSON API at https://externals.io/api · documentation at https://externals.io/llms.txt

## Discussions on the mailing list

- [\[RFC\]\[DISCUSSION\] Deprecate the backtick operator](https://externals.io/message/101823.md) — started on 2018-02-11, 33 messages

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## Introduction

The backtick operator (`` `dir D:\foo` ``) is used to execute commands via shell.

The same functionality is also available as `shell_exec()`.

## Proposal

This RFC proposes to deprecate (by triggering one among E\_DEPRECATED, E\_STRICT or E\_NOTICE) it in PHP 7.3 and suggest to use `shell_exec()` instead:

- in case PHP decided in future to use backtick enclosed strings for Unicode strings
- because it is a shady way to execute a rare and dangerous operation
- because it is weirdly specific to a rare operation; regexp literals, xml-strings literals are way more common use cases, but they don't have a specific string literal

## Backward Incompatible Changes

None, the feature will continue to work until it is removed in future PHP versions, but a notice will be emitted.

## Proposed PHP Version:

7.3

## Voting

2/3 majority will be required.

## References

\- [Discussion on externals](https://externals.io/message/101823)