Output of one recipe in arguments to subsequent recipes?

[Jack Bates]

Is there any way to use the standard output of one command (recipe) in 
arguments to subsequent recipes? How would you approach something like 
the following (which doesn't work):

> school:
>   export HOST=$$(php /usr/share/cacti/cli/add_device.php \
>     --description=school \
>     --ip=172.23.0.1 \
>     --template=1 | sed -n 's/Success - new device-id: 
(\([0-9]\+\))/\1/p')
>
>   php /usr/share/cacti/cli/add_tree.php \
>     --type=node \
>     --node-type=host \
>     --tree-id=$$DEFAULT_TREE \
>     --host-id=$$HOST
>
>   php /usr/share/cacti/cli/add_graphs.php \
>     --graph-type=ds \
>     --graph-template-id=$$TRAFFIC \
>     --host-id=$$HOST \
>     --snmp-query-id=$$INTERFACE_STATISTICS \
>     --snmp-query-type-id=$$IN_OUT_BITS \
>     --snmp-field=ifOperStatus \
>     --snmp-value=Up

I want to assign the standard output to the HOST variable and then use 
that in arguments to subsequent commands. I guess the above doesn't work 
because variables from one recipe aren't propagated to subsequent 
recipes, but is there any way to do it correctly?

Thanks!