External program output and result

[Enrico Colombini <erix@...>]

I can launch an external program with os.execute() and get its result.
I can launch it with io.popen() and get its output.

Is there a pure-Lua way to get both output and result?
(without resorting to an intermediate file, I mean)

I'm working on Windows, so the shell is quite limited.

  Enrico