#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <stdio.h>

int exec_cmd(std::string cmd, std::string &res){
  if (cmd.size() == 0){  //cmd is empty 
    return -1;
  }

  char buffer[1024] = {0};
  std::string result = "";
  FILE *pin = popen(cmd.c_str(), "r");
  if (!pin) { //popen failed 
    return -1;
  }

  res.clear();
  while(!feof(pin)){
    if(fgets(buffer, sizeof(buffer), pin) != NULL){
      result += buffer;
    }
  }

  res = result;
  return pclose(pin); //-1:pclose failed; else shell ret
}

int main(){
  std::string cmd = "ls -ial";
  std::string res;

  std::cout << "ret = " << exec_cmd(cmd, res) << std::endl;
  std::cout << res << std::endl;

  return 0;
}

<?php
  $cmd = "wc -l ./test.php";
  exec($cmd, $output, $code);

  echo $code."\n";
  print_r($output);
?>

import commands

status, output = commands.getstatusoutput('ls -lt')

print status
print output