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From: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: ARexx question
Message-ID: <23942@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 2 May 89 23:10:22 GMT
References: <9479@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
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Reply-To: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
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In article <9479@watcgl.waterloo.edu> bmacintyre@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Blair MacIntyre) writes:
<
<Ok, heres a simple(?) ARexx question:
<
<	How can I get the output of a DOS program, say date or
<"ls -l fred", etc. into a variable inside of an ARexx program?
<I couldn't find anything skimming through the manual, so the
<closest I could get was something like:
<
<	date ">pipe:date"
<	call open mydate,"pipe:date",read
<	datestr = read(mydate)
<	call close mydate

There's a tool that comes with wshell - "execio". Use it, like so:

	'date | execio var datestr'

done.

Furthermore, you can get multiple lines, for instance:

	'execio read' file 'stem data.'

data.0 will have the number of lines, and data.[1-#] will have the
lines. This is about an order of magnitude faster than reading the
stuff in yourself.

execio also does "grep-like" things for you. For instance, to get the
free space on the disk whose name is in volume, I do:

	'info | execio locate' volume 'for 1 var infoline'
	freespace = word(infoline, 4)

Of course, "info volume" could also be used and you could drop the
"for 1".

	<mike

--
I'm gonna lasso you with my rubberband lazer,		Mike Meyer
Pull you closer to me, and look right to the moon.	mwm@berkeley.edu
Ride side by side when worlds collide,			ucbvax!mwm
And slip into the Martian tide.				mwm@ucbjade.BITNET