Executiong OS commands through a client facing application PHP may use the execsystemshell_execpassthru, or popen

Eg.

<?php
if (isset($_GET['filename'])) {
    system("touch /tmp/" . $_GET['filename'] . ".pdf");
}
?>

NodeJS, a developer may use child_process.exec or `child_process.spawn

Eg.

app.get("/createfile", function(req, res){
    child_process.exec(`touch /tmp/${req.query.filename}.txt`);
})