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(g77-295.info)System Intrinsic (function)

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System Intrinsic (function)
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     System(COMMAND)

System: `INTEGER(KIND=1)' function.

COMMAND: `CHARACTER'; scalar; INTENT(IN).

Intrinsic groups: `badu77'.

Description:

   Passes the command COMMAND to a shell (see `system(3)').  Returns
the value returned by `system(3)', presumably 0 if the shell command
succeeded.  Note that which shell is used to invoke the command is
system-dependent and environment-dependent.

   Due to the side effects performed by this intrinsic, the function
form is not recommended.  However, the function form can be valid in
cases where the actual side effects performed by the call are
unimportant to the application.

   For example, on a UNIX system, `SAME = SYSTEM('cmp a b')' does not
perform any side effects likely to be important to the program, so the
programmer would not care if the actual system call (and invocation of
`cmp') was optimized away in a situation where the return value could
be determined otherwise, or was not actually needed (`SAME' not
actually referenced after the sample assignment statement).

   For information on other intrinsics with the same name: Note: System
Intrinsic (subroutine).