What best practices should PHP developers follow when executing shell commands using shell_exec() to avoid potential issues like long loading times?

When executing shell commands using shell_exec() in PHP, developers should avoid running commands that may take a long time to execute, as this can lead to long loading times and potential performance issues. To mitigate this, developers can use the PHP function set_time_limit() to limit the maximum execution time of the script, ensuring that it does not run indefinitely.

// Set a maximum execution time of 30 seconds for the script
set_time_limit(30);

// Execute the shell command with shell_exec()
$output = shell_exec('your_shell_command_here');