How to capture system() function output in variable

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

How to capture system() function output in awk variable and the print that awk variable.....

2

A system() function is a shell.
If the order doesn't matter,
it is usually better to first start with a shell, then invoke awk from there and pass arguments. Example:

#!/bin/sh
x=$(whatever command)
awk -v x="$x" 'awk code can use the x variable'
3

Thanks
Yeah I agree with you...but I want to know how to store result of system() function..........

4

All you can capture into a variable is the exit code of the command executed by the system function, like A=system("ls") . The output of ls is printed to stdout immediately.

5

Ha soo we cannot capture commands output instead of status.....okay thanks for quick reply

---------- Post updated at 11:34 AM ---------- Previous update was at 11:29 AM ----------

Soo there is no way to capture result? ????:(:(:(:frowning:

6

You can store the output of an external command invoked from inside awk,
but you should not use the system function for that:

zsh-5.0.2[user]% awk 'BEGIN { "date" | getline dt; print "Got", dt }'
Got Thu, Jul 31, 2014  1:36:47 PM
7

:):):slight_smile: thanks

8

For multi-line output use a loop:

zsh-5.0.2[user]% awk 'BEGIN {
  while (("ls /etc | head" | getline _out) > 0)
    print "Got:", _out
}'
Got: alternatives
Got: bash.bash_logout
Got: bash.bashrc
Got: bash_completion
Got: bash_completion.d
Got: csh.cshrc
Got: csh.login
Got: dbus-1
Got: defaults
Got: DIR_COLORS
9

See this thread.