Thorn3
asked on
Stream Redirection
Hi..
I am writing some software which takes a list of files and converts a bunch of text in them.
I have wrote a couple modules already which takes data from stdinput, operates on it and outputs to the stdoutput. I did it this way as it is flexable and the invididual modules are helpful on my system.
I am now working on a program which takes all of my executable modules and will run them according to a template supplied but I do not know how to call a program within C and be able to post data to stdin and read the result from stdout. I am using C code and do not wish to do this using batch scripts or such.
Example
-----------
I Have 1 file called test.mpr containing "Good Morning World "
1 Module called replace which takes 2 arguments <searchstring> <replacestring>
I can accomplish what I want from a terminal like so.
---
cat test.mpr | replace "Morning" "Night" > output.mpr
---
output.mpr now will contain "Good Night World"
How can I accomplish the same thing using strictly C?
I would like to keep my code as cross compatible as possible aswell.
Im sure its an simple task I just can't seem to find exactly what im looking for.
Thanks in advance.
Cliff
I am writing some software which takes a list of files and converts a bunch of text in them.
I have wrote a couple modules already which takes data from stdinput, operates on it and outputs to the stdoutput. I did it this way as it is flexable and the invididual modules are helpful on my system.
I am now working on a program which takes all of my executable modules and will run them according to a template supplied but I do not know how to call a program within C and be able to post data to stdin and read the result from stdout. I am using C code and do not wish to do this using batch scripts or such.
Example
-----------
I Have 1 file called test.mpr containing "Good Morning World "
1 Module called replace which takes 2 arguments <searchstring> <replacestring>
I can accomplish what I want from a terminal like so.
---
cat test.mpr | replace "Morning" "Night" > output.mpr
---
output.mpr now will contain "Good Night World"
How can I accomplish the same thing using strictly C?
I would like to keep my code as cross compatible as possible aswell.
Im sure its an simple task I just can't seem to find exactly what im looking for.
Thanks in advance.
Cliff
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Jaime Olivares
You will need to include "system.h" header
If you want to dig deeper into C library, then I think this how a shell (written in C, obviously) would implement IO redirection. You can do the same...
/* Open the input and output files. */
int fd_in, fd_out;
fd_in = open("test.mpr", O_RDONLY);
/* check error */
fd_out = open("output.mpr", O_WRONLY);
/* check error */
/* Replace stdin and stdout */
dup2(fd_in, 0) /* 0 is the file descriptor for stdin */
/* check error */
dup2(fd_out, 1) /* stdout */
/* check error */
/* Run the "replace" program */
exec("replace");
/* check error */
One variant of the above code is - if the input/output stream has to be redirected to another program rather than a file, then use the pipe() call to create a pipe and use the file descriptors of the pipe in the dup2() call.
HTH
Ravs
/* Open the input and output files. */
int fd_in, fd_out;
fd_in = open("test.mpr", O_RDONLY);
/* check error */
fd_out = open("output.mpr", O_WRONLY);
/* check error */
/* Replace stdin and stdout */
dup2(fd_in, 0) /* 0 is the file descriptor for stdin */
/* check error */
dup2(fd_out, 1) /* stdout */
/* check error */
/* Run the "replace" program */
exec("replace");
/* check error */
One variant of the above code is - if the input/output stream has to be redirected to another program rather than a file, then use the pipe() call to create a pipe and use the file descriptors of the pipe in the dup2() call.
HTH
Ravs
>>How can I accomplish the same thing using strictly C?
You can use 'system()', but not like jaime_olivares told you to. As the redirection is done by the shell (and not by any other program), you need to invoke a shell and ask it for that, e.g.
system("/bin/sh -c cat test.mpr | replace \"Morning\" \"Night\" > output.mpr");
You can use 'system()', but not like jaime_olivares told you to. As the redirection is done by the shell (and not by any other program), you need to invoke a shell and ask it for that, e.g.
system("/bin/sh -c cat test.mpr | replace \"Morning\" \"Night\" > output.mpr");
>> As the redirection is done by the shell (and not by any other program), you need to invoke a shell and ask it for that, e.g.
thats not right, system() function is _not_ an interface into the operating
system, but rather its an interface to the shell(under unix environment)
itself. POSIX 2. specifies that system() shall return success only if a command
interpreter is availiable in the environment(command interpreter = shell in our case).
Hence its perfectly OK to invoke system as:
system("someprogram <someinput.txt >someoutput.txt");
thats not right, system() function is _not_ an interface into the operating
system, but rather its an interface to the shell(under unix environment)
itself. POSIX 2. specifies that system() shall return success only if a command
interpreter is availiable in the environment(command interpreter = shell in our case).
Hence its perfectly OK to invoke system as:
system("someprogram <someinput.txt >someoutput.txt");
ASKER
Thank you for the help..
The answer is not quite what I was hopeing for but should work.
On a side note how can bash do redirection internally after the user types in a command like this for instance "echo hello | cat". Does it make OS Specific API calls?
The answer is not quite what I was hopeing for but should work.
On a side note how can bash do redirection internally after the user types in a command like this for instance "echo hello | cat". Does it make OS Specific API calls?