Command
	system

Purpose
	Sends a command or an executable to the operating system for execution.

Aliases
	system, sys

Syntax
	system <command> [ <argument> [ <argument> ... ] ]

Options
	-s	Leave forward slashes alone (as forward slashes). Without this option, all forward slashes
		in the system command are translated to back slashes. (This is done because many operating
		systems recognize only back slashes in file and directory paths.)

Arguments
	<command>	This is a command or an executable that will be executed by the operating system.
		This can be relative path name, or absolute path name. It can be an executable that you have created,
		a program from a third party or a command that you can execute on the operating system's
		command console. It can be specified using a constant, variable, expression,
		function call, inline command, or a combination of these, all resulting in a value of type str.

	<argument>	This is an argument that will be sent to the <command> as a command-line argument.
		This can be any string whose interpretation is left to the <command>. It can be an option such as
		-x, an argument such as "abc" or an option with an argument such as "-x abc". If the <argument>
		needs a double quote within it, it can be included by backspacing it. <argument> can be specified
		using a constant, variable, expression, function call, inline command, or a combination of these,
		all resulting in a value of type str.

Stream Input	
	Contents of stream input are passed as stream input to the <command>.

Stream Output
	The stream output from the <command> is added to the system command's own stream output.

Stream Error
	Any errors are listed here. Also, stream error from the <command> is added to the
	system command's own stream error.

Description
	This command is used to send a command or an executable to the operating system for execution.
	<command> and <argument>s together need to result in a string that you can type directly on
	the operating system's command console.

	The stream input to the system command is passed as stream input to <command>. biterScripting will
	wait till <command>'s execution is completed. Upon completion of its execution, the stream output
	and stream error produced by the <command> are added to the system command's own stream output and
	stream error respectively. These are then processed according to any redirection you may have specified.
		
Restrictions
	Some operating systems require that all path names be specified with backslashes, such as C:\Temp.
	Sending commands to these operating systems will require changing all forward slashes to backslashes
	in any path names in arguments. A sample script SS_SlashBack is available to do just that. See in
	valid examples below for how to use this script.

	biterScripting itself will handle path names with forward slashes or backslashes correctly. For example,
	biterScripting will correctly interpret all of the following - C:/Temp, C:\Temp, C:\\Temp .

Valid Examples
	system "copy x.doc y.doc"
	Will copy file x.doc to file y.doc. This will work on operating systems that support the copy command.

	var str fileList, file
	lf -rn "*" "C:/mypages" ($fatime < "20050101") > $fileList
	while ($fileList<>"")
	do
	  lex "1" $fileList > $file
	  script SS_SlashBack.txt ospath($file) > $file
	  system del $file
	  done
	Will delete all files in directory C:/mypages (and subdirectories) that have not been accessed
	since Jan 1, 2005 (20050101).

	system "C:/program.exe" >"C:/out.txt" 2>"C:/err.txt"
	Assuming that you have developed a program and stored it in "C:/program.exe", the
	above command will execute it and write the data from its stream output and stream error
	to files C:/out.txt and C:/err.txt respectively.	

Invalid Examples
	system "script1.txt"
	Assuming that script1.txt contains a valid biterScripting script, the above is erroneous.
	If the intent is to execute a biterScripting script, use the following instead.

	script "script1.txt"

	Some operating systems have difficulty in dealing with spaces and other special characters
	in file and directory names. Here is an example.

	system rename "X Y.txt" "XY.txt"

	The above will probably produce an error from the operating system because it may not be
	able to handle the file name "X Y.txt" correctly. To alleviate that, enclose the file name
	within the double quotes and wrap the entire string into an expression, as follows.

	system rename ("\""+"X Y.txt"+"\"") "XY.txt"

	This approach will work with variables also. For example, if the name of the file was passed thru
	a str variable $file, and we are looking to rename it to "XY.txt", the following will work.

	system rename ("\""+$file+"\"") "XY.txt"

See Also
batch
script
var
constant
inline