Summary
Creates a pipe and executes a command
Prototype
f = io.popen (command, mode)
Description
Creates a pipe and executes a command. Mode can be one of:
"r" - The calling process can read the spawned command’s standard output via the returned stream. This is the default.
"w" - The calling process can write to the spawned command’s standard input via the returned stream.
"b" - Open in binary mode.
"t" - Open in text mode.
However io.popen is not supported under the version compiled into MUSHclient, so don't get too excited. :)
This is an example of using popen under the Linux Lua executable:
f = assert (io.popen ("ls -l"))
for line in f:lines() do
print(line)
end -- for loop
f:close()
An alternative to using pipes, if you want to capture operating system output, is to redirect command output to a temporary file, like this:
-- get a temporary file name
n = os.tmpname ()
-- execute a command
os.execute ("dir > " .. n)
-- display output
for line in io.lines (n) do
print (line)
end
-- remove temporary file
os.remove (n)
See Also ...
Lua functions
f:close - Closes a file
f:flush - Flushes outstanding data to disk
f:lines - Returns an iterator function for reading the file line-by-line
f:read - Reads the file according to the specified formats
f:seek - Sets and gets the current file position
f:setvbuf - Sets the buffering mode for an output file
f:write - Writes to a file
io.close - Closes a file
io.flush - Flushes outstanding data to disk for the default output file
io.input - Opens filename for input in text mode
io.lines - Returns an iterator function for reading a named file line-by-line
io.open - Opens a file
io.output - Opens a file for output
io.read - Reads from the default input file
io.stderr - File handle for standard error file
io.stdin - File handle for standard input file
io.stdout - File handle for standard output file
io.tmpfile - Returns a handle to a temporary file
io.type - Returns type of file handle
io.write - Writes to the default output file
Topics
Lua base functions
Lua bc (big number) functions
Lua bit manipulation functions
Lua coroutine functions
Lua debug functions
Lua io functions
Lua math functions
Lua os functions
Lua package functions
Lua PCRE regular expression functions
Lua script extensions
Lua string functions
Lua syntax
Lua table functions
Lua utilities
Scripting
Scripting callbacks - plugins
(Help topic: lua=io.popen)