Call a Perl script in AWK

Question

I have a problem that I need to call a Perl script with parameters passing in and get the return value of the Perl script in an AWK BEGIN block. Just like below.

I have a Perl script util.pl

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
$res=`$exe_cmd`;
print $res;

Now in the AWK BEGIN block (ksh) I need to call the script and get the return value.

BEGIN { print "in awk, application type is " type;  
                    } \
            {call per script here;}

How do I call the Perl script with parameter and get the return value of $res?

res = util.pl a b c; 

Answer 1

Pipe the script into getline:

awk 'BEGIN {
         cmd = "util.pl a b c"; 
         cmd | getline res; 
         close(cmd);
         print "in awk, application type is " res
     }'