Lua os.execute return value

Question

Is it possible to read the following from the local variable in Lua?

local t = os.execute("echo 'test'") print(t) 

I just want to achieve this: whenever os.execute returns any value, I would like to use it in Lua - for example echo 'test' will output test in the bash command line - is that possible to get the returned value (test in this case) to the Lua local variable?

Answer 1

You can use io.popen() instead. This returns a file handle you can use to read the output of the command. Something like the following may work:

local handle = io.popen(command) local result = handle:read("*a") handle:close() 

Note that this will include the trailing newline (if any) that the command emits.

Answer 2

function GetFiles(mask)    local files = {}    local tmpfile = '/tmp/stmp.txt'    os.execute('ls -1 '..mask..' > '..tmpfile)    local f = io.open(tmpfile)    if not f then return files end      local k = 1    for line in f:lines() do       files[k] = line       k = k + 1    end    f:close()    return files  end