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Run a system command in a cross-platform manner

Source: R/general_system_command.R
system_command.Rd

This function executes a system command, using either shell on Windows or system on Linux. It allows the output of the command to be captured into an R object.

Usage

system_command(command, r_object = TRUE, ...)

Arguments

command

Character. The bash command to be executed.

r_object

Logical. Whether to capture the output of the command as an R object. If TRUE (Default), the output is captured; if FALSE, the output is printed to the console.

...

Additional arguments passed to either shell or system function, depending on the operating system.

Value

Depending on the value of r_object, either the output of the executed command as an R object or NULL if r_object is FALSE and the output is printed to the console.

Author

Ahmed El-Gabbas

Examples

# print working directory
system_command("pwd")
#> [1] "/home/runner/work/ecokit/ecokit/docs/reference"
system_command("pwd", r_object = FALSE)
#> /home/runner/work/ecokit/ecokit/docs/reference

# first 5 files on the working directory
(A <- system_command("ls | head -n 5"))
#> [1] "OS.html"                      "add_geometric_features-1.png"
#> [3] "add_geometric_features-2.png" "add_geometric_features.html" 
#> [5] "add_image_to_plot-1.png"     

B <- system_command("ls | head -n 5", r_object = FALSE)
#> OS.html
#> add_geometric_features-1.png
#> add_geometric_features-2.png
#> add_geometric_features.html
#> add_image_to_plot-1.png
B
#> NULL