Lua by Example: Exec'ing Processes

To interact with other programs on the system and perform actions that are not directly supported by lua, one can delecate the action to the operating system shell with `os.execute()` or `io.popen()`
`os.execute()` executes a command using the operating system shell, and returns if the command was successful or not. If you need the command’s output see io.popen	local success = os.execute('mkdir -p /tmp/example') if success then print('successfully created directory') end
`io.popen()` Runs a command, and returns a handle which can be used to read the command’s output. Success or failure of the command is reported as the first return value when closing the handle.	local handle = io.popen("date --date='@2147483647'") if handle == nil then return end local stdout = handle:read() success = handle:close() if success then print('output is:', stdout) else print('error when executing command') end

$ lua execing-processes.lua
successfully created directory
output is:    Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 UTC 2038

Next example: Exit.