Quick and Dirty way to grab the output from command line programs, the example below prints all the environment variables, but it could be used to capture directory listings or ipconfig output.

Requires: None

Code

local Hnd, ErrStr = io.popen("set")
if Hnd then
  for Line in Hnd:lines() do
    print(Line)
  end -- for Line
  Hnd:close()
else
  print(ErrStr)
end

 

Version 2

Another cleaner option which avoids the “command line flash” is to use Luacom and write the information to a temporary file.

       local function readAll(file)
            local f = assert(io.open(file, "rb"))
            local content = f:read("*all")
            f:close()
            return content
        end
        local sTmpFile = os.tmpname()..'.txt'
        print(sTmpFile)
        -- Windows Version
        local sCmd = 'cmd /c ver > '..sTmpFile
        Shell = luacom.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
        Shell:Run (sCmd, 0, true)
        sVersion = readAll(sTmpFile)
        print(sVersion)
        os.remove(sTmpFile)

 

Note the Shell:Run parameters are

1. 1. The command to run
2.  0 = hide window
3. true = wait for command to finish before continuing