BEGIN { command = "sort" n = split("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz", a, "") for (i = n; i > 0; i--) { # print "printing", a[i] > "/dev/stderr" print a[i] |& command } close(command, "to") # print "starting read loop" > "/dev/stderr" do { if (line) print "got", line # stopme(); } while ((command |& getline line) > 0) # print "doing final close" > "/dev/stderr" close(command) }