9. Operating System Interface

ECL provides the following facilities that are not defined in [see section Steele:84].

Function: system {string}

Executes a Shell command as if string is an input to the Shell. On return from the Shell command, system returns the exit code of the command as an integer.

Function: open-pipe {string}

Executes a Shell command as if string is an input to the Shell. It returns a stream corresponding to the output stream of the Shell command, from which one can read its output.

Function: quit {&optional

Terminates ECL and returns the exit-code to the parent process. exit-code must be an integer and its default value is 0.