Re: Returning system command output to a string variable

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Monday 07 March 2005 10:42 pm, Juergen Wieferink wrote:
> I meant an ordinary function which takes a string (the system
> command) and returns another one---the output of the system command.
> Using the backtics wouldn't work for RFE#1108413.

Ah, sorry. 
I assumed you were continuing the previous discussion, which 
involved also the substitution of macro values into the command
passed to the system. For example
	result = system("grep @key @file") 
The problem there is that macro substitution doesn't happen
inside quoted strings.

If you don't care about macro substitution, then I think it
would be possible. I was earlier very worried about memory leaks
from such an operation, but I think I now understand how to
avoid leaking memory.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington 98195-7742