listtotable -l | argv | tabletolist

via the system() call.

collist is used for converting list files to tables for processing by programs which deal only with table format, and converting them back to list format on output. collist requires that the input be waiting on the standard input.

Generally, the argc, argv and envp arguments received by the main() functions of the calling program are handed off directly to collist without any parsing, once it has determined that the input is in list format.