system

system( command )

Function that executes the specified command and returns its status. The status of the executed command typically indicates success or failure. A value of 0 means that the command executed successfully. A nonzero value indicates a failure of some sort. The documentation for the command you're running will give you the details.

The output of the command is not available for processing within the awk script. Use command | getline to read the output of a command into the script. {N}