Capturing program output in a variable

A quick one to warm up some brains:
I have a program that outputs to stdout. Is there any simple way to capture that output in a variable? Only the 1st word matters. I've been thinking of this
but I want something much easier if possible. Should work under Win9x-NT-2K-XP

myprogram.exe [|arguments]>temp.var
for %%i in (temp.var) do set myvariable=%%i
del temp.var
call nextstep.bat %myvariable%

Also any ideea how to get the computer name and logged on username in Win95? %computername% and %username% don't exist there.

Auditing time has come here too :(
Ideeas? I smell smoke already :D

ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/batchutil/dmgterr.zip may work for you.

this is what I as actually looking for...

All rights reserved Copyright (c) 1993-2003 by Timo Salmi

From [email protected] Sat Dec 27 01:00:24 2003
Subject: Testing for the errorlevel
Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2003 01:00:24
From: [email protected] (Timo Salmi)

23. Alternatives for testing for the errorlevel value
================================================== ===

Many programs and some MS-DOS commands (like diskcomp, format and
xcopy) return an errorlevel exit code on termination. Testing for
the errorlevel is complicated by the cumulative nature of
errorlevels. Thus if you wish to test if the errorlevel was
(exactly) 2, you must use
if errorlevel==2 if not errorlevel==3 echo Errorlevel 2
Another alternative is utilizing the for command:
for %%e in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) do if errorlevel==%%e set _errlev=%%e
if "%_errlev%"=="2" echo Errorlevel 2
Alternatively, and more generally
for %%e in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) do if errorlevel==%%e set _errlev=%%e
if "%_errlev%"=="2" echo Errorlevel %_errlev%
A convenient trick in more complicated batches is using the goto
command:
for %%e in (0 1 2) do if errorlevel==%%e goto _label%%e
goto _out
:_label0
echo Errorlevel 0
:_label1
echo Errorlevel 1
:_label2
echo Errorlevel 2
:_out
See BOOT.BAT for actual usage of this technique.
The order in which there errorlevels are given is significant,
since all the errorlevels up to the one returned will be on.
Consider the following demonstration
@echo off
find "hello" con > nul
if errorlevel==2 echo errorlevel 2 % error in search %
if errorlevel==1 echo errorlevel 1 % no match found %
if errorlevel==0 echo errorlevel 0 % match found %
If you type
peekaboo
^Z
you'll get *both*
errorlevel 1
errorlevel 0
If you type
hello
^Z
then you'll get just
errorlevel 0

If you are ready allow a few additional lines for a more clear
documentation and easier to understand logic, consider this example
of choice usage
@echo off
choice /tq,5 /cynq
for %%i in (0 1 2 3 255) do if errorlevel==%%i set i_=%%i
if "%i_%"=="0" echo You effected a break
if "%i_%"=="1" echo Your input was Yes
if "%i_%"=="2" echo Your input was No
if "%i_%"=="3" echo Your input was Quit
if "%i_%"=="255" echo Error condition
set i_=

A more complicated example
@echo off
if "%2"=="recurse" goto _for
choice /s/c:123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz
for %%j in (0 1 2 3 4 5 6) do call %0 %%j recurse
goto _level
:_for
for %%i in (%10 %11 %12 %13 %14 %15 %16 %17 %18 %19 255) do if errorlevel==%%i set i_=%%i
goto _exit
::
:_level
echo errorlevel==%i_%
:_exit

Speaking of errorlevels, some novice batch users occasionally ask
for the general list of the meanings of the errorlevel values. This
question is based on a failure to grasp how errorlevels are created.
Batch files can only test their values. It is the executable
programs that can return errorlevel values. What the particular
values are, which an executable program returns, is totally
dependent on the individual program. Some programs may be able to
return a lot of different values, some none (or rather return zero
errorlevel). Perhaps this misunderstanding is based on the fact that
MS-DOS includes a number of programs, such as CHOICE.COM, FIND.EXE
and XCOPY.EXE which return errorlevels. For example MS-DOS version
6.22 XCOPY.EXE can signal with six different errorlevel values (0 to
5) depending on the outcome. For those values see "HELP XCOPY" and
select "Notes".

As explained, the errorlevel returned depends on the program called.
But if you wish to set a specific errorlevel within a batch file
(e.g. for testing purposes), you can use G(nu)AWK exit as follows
within your batch file
echo.|gawk '{exit N}'
where you can put as N anything between 0 and 255. Alternatively,
just
gawk 'BEGIN{exit N}'
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