system("ps -al"); Question

[Matus]

Here's the deal, I got some knowledge on C, but now some processes stuff have come in which is pretty new. I've figured much of the problem, but im wondering is there anyway to get the processes info display as below, especially the one in Blue. I did a system ("ps -al"); and got the one way below, but i dont seem to find anything on the man pages to do that sort that's in blue, is it doable?:

./prog2a: Printing System Process chart using "ps -al"
F S UID PID PPID C PRI NI ADDR SZ WCHAN TTY TIME CMD
0 S 1000 3879 3099 0 78 0 - 331 schedu tty2 00:00:00 script
1 S 1000 3880 3879 0 77 0 - 364 schedu tty2 00:00:00 script

##
Next line is the parent process
##
0 R 1000 3888 3881 0 79 0 - 325 - pts/0 00:00:00 prog2a
##
Next line is the child process
##
1 S 1000 3889 3888 0 79 0 - 325 clock_ pts/0 00:00:00 prog2a
0 R 1000 3890 3888 0 82 0 - 626 - pts/0 00:00:00 ps 

Got this with system("ps -al");

F S   UID   PID  PPID  C PRI  NI ADDR SZ WCHAN  TTY          TIME CMD
0 S  4888 11415 11315  0  80   0 -  1325 -      pts/0    00:00:00 ssh
0 S  4888 11440 11422  0  80   0 -  1325 -      pts/1    00:00:00 ssh
0 R  4888 11600 11463  0  80   0 -   390 -      pts/2    00:00:00 l
1 R  4888 11601 11600  0  80   0 -   391 -      pts/2    00:00:00 l
0 R  4888 11602 11601  0  80   0 -   443 -      pts/2    00:00:00 sh
0 R  4888 11603 11602  0  80   0 -   607 -      pts/2    00:00:00 ps

[esbo]

How did you get the one on top, if you don't mind me asking?

[tabstop]

So Linux has things like getpid and getppid.

[Matus]

How did you get the one on top, if you don't mind me asking?

O right, sorry the top one was an example the teacher posted as an example to follow. How the program should look like when it runs. But i solved it I'll post the solution i got with the help of a friend, if those from my class would care to follow: Here it is:

First have a variable of type char with a name, for instance mine was command, you guys should use something different ok:

char cmd[50];

printf("#########################################################################\n"
            "Next line parent process\n"
               "#########################################################################\n");
     sprintf(command,"%s %d","ps -lp ",getppid());  //parent chart
     system(command);
     printf("#########################################################################\n"
            "Next line is the child process\n"
            "#########################################################################\n");
     sprintf(command,"%s %d","ps -al | grep",getpid()); //child chart
     system(command);

There that will print only the parent and the child process chart, so thats basically what i have.

!

Use this site for other reads, basically what i used: http://h71000.www7.hp.com/commercial.../5763p012.html

[Matus]

So Linux has things like getpid and getppid.

Yup yes i know tabstop, but this was a bit different from what i wanted, though the ideas still lied between those two things yes!

[Matus]

Oh yea one more thing that might be confusing to my classmates, if u still having problems with execl, what u needed to do was, first of all execute partb.c of the program, gcc it, after u did that you will use execl this way

execl("programexecutablenamefrompartb","Arg1","Arg2",(char *)NULL);

That should do the trick of running, program partb in the first program, if anyone from C board has other recommendations cool, I'd more than welcome more info.

[MK27]

You know popen is better for this, since you can then get the output and parse it yourself:

char cmmd[]="ps", opt[]="-al", string[256], buffer[1024];
sprintf(string, "%s %s", cmmd, opt);
FILE *pin=popen(string, "r");
while (get_a_line(pin, buffer)>0) {
         [do stuff line by line, eg. parse, format, print with the output of the command]
}

You need some function (get_a_line) to read from FILE *pin exactly as if it were a txt file open for reading (like FILE *fstin).