If you're trying to run a command such as "gunzip -t" in shell_exec and getting an empty result, you might need to add 2>&1 to the end of the command, eg:
Won't always work:
echo shell_exec("gunzip -c -t $path_to_backup_file");
Should work:
echo shell_exec("gunzip -c -t $path_to_backup_file 2>&1");
In the above example, a line break at the beginning of the gunzip output seemed to prevent shell_exec printing anything else. Hope this saves someone else an hour or two.