Simple command execution

Sometimes you need to run external commands, and just need the return value or exit code...
One simple way to do this is the following:

-module(tport).
-export([ execute/2 ]).

execute(Host, Cmd) ->
 Port = open_port({spawn, Cmd}, [ {cd, Host}, exit_status, binary ] ),
 wait(Port).

wait(Port) ->
 receive 
  {Port, {data, BinData}} ->
   io:format("dump:~n~p~n", [BinData]),
   wait(Port);
  {Port, {exit_status, Status}} ->
   io:format("exit_code: ~p~n", [Status]);
  %% {Port, eof} ->
  %%  port_close(Port);
  {Port, exit} ->
   io:format("Received : ~p~n", [Port])
 end.

Once a port opened your process will receive various messages and one we're interested in is the 'exit_status' one:

  {Port, {exit_status, Status}} ->
   io:format("exit_code: ~p~n", [Status]);

The variable 'Status' will hold the exit code.

Simple isn't it ?