R: Invoke a System Command

system {base} | R Documentation

## Invoke a System Command

### Description

`system` invokes the OS command specified by `command`.

### Usage

    system(command, intern = FALSE, ignore.stderr = FALSE)

### Arguments

`command` | the system command to be invoked, as a string.
`intern` | a logical, indicates whether to make the output of the command an R object.
`ignore.stderr` | a logical indicating whether error messages (written to ``stderr`') should be ignored.

### Details

If `intern` is `TRUE` then `popen` is used to invoke the command and the output collected, line by line, into an R `character` vector which is returned as the value of `system`.

If `intern` is `FALSE` then the C function `system` is used to invoke the command and the value returned by `system` is the exit status of this function.

`unix` is a deprecated alternative, available for backwards compatibility.

### Value

If `intern=TRUE`, a character vector giving the output of the command, one line per character string. If the command could not be run or gives an error a R error is generated.
If `intern=FALSE`, the return value is an error code.

### See Also

`.Platform` for platform specific variables.

### Examples

    # list all files in the current directory using the -F flag
    system("ls -F")

    # t1 is a character vector, each one
    # representing a separate line of output from who
    t1 <- system("who", TRUE)

    system("ls fizzlipuzzli", TRUE, TRUE)# empty since file doesn't exist

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