How to pipe/redirect output of a command in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to another using a system() call?

GOAL: I would like to use a system() cal to WSL to execute bash commands in the Linux subsystem by utilizing pipes so that I can direct the output of one bash command to another. An example would be piping the output of a command like 'ls' to 'tail' so that I can capture the last line obtained from 'ls' under WSL. ('ls' is just an example here for the sake of simplicity; the focus is not on obtaining the same output it provides by directly using the MATLAB built-in functions.)

STEPS I tried:

>> system('wsl ls /mnt/c/ | tail -n 1')
'tail' is not recognized as an internal or external command, 
operable program or batch file.

>> system('wsl "ls /mnt/c/ | tail -n 1"')
/bin/bash: ls /mnt/c/ | tail -n 1: No such file or directory

>> %another example, with 'wc' to count lines from a file using '<' 
system('wsl wc -l </mnt/c/test.dat')
The system cannot find the path specified.

>> system('wsl "wc -l </mnt/c/test.dat"')
/bin/bash: wc -l </mnt/c/test.dat: No such file or directory

It appears to me that either the system call to wsl to execute bash commands do not recognize pipes or I/O redirection operators, or I am not using the correct syntax to make it work.

In case this may be compatibility issue regarding Windows updates on the WSL system, here's system specific information

Windows: Version 1903 (OS Build 18362.239)

WSL Distribution: Legacy,, running GNU bash, version 4.3.48(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

Any help would be appreciated.

[Walter Roberson]

system('wsl bash -c "ls /mnt/c/ | tail -n 1"')

Possibly

[Mert Turkol]

Thank you Walter,

Before I saw your answer, I saw an answer by Wei Feng to a similar question asked in: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/381938-wsl-bash-calls-from-the-system-command?s_tid=answers_rc1-2_p2_MLT

It appears that we do not have to put 'wsl ' in front of 'bash -c ' to successfully execute the commands:

>> system('bash -c "ls /mnt/c/ | tail -n 1"')
work

ans =

     0

I tested the command above on MATLAB R2016a to see if string array definition would cause problem according to MATLAB's statement:

String arrays, introduced in MATLAB R2016b, can now be formed using double quotes.

The status value returned as 0 and it executed successfully.

Thank you for your reply.

[Walter Roberson]

Double quotes within single quotes are just characters not string forming operators.

[Mert Turkol]

Ah, you're right. Pretty straightforward, but I did not think about it at first.