system call variable

Hello everyone,
I was wondering is it possible to use system() and put the results into a variable. For example,

Code:

---

#include <stdio.h>


int main (void)
{
       
        char l;
        printf("Your libc version is:\n");
                l = system("/lib/libc.so.6 | head -n1 | awk '{print $7}'");
        printf("%s", l);
}

---

The output of this is:

Quote:

---

Your libc version is:
2.5,
(null)

---

Or do I need to use something else like excel or fork?
Thanks in advance,
Brad

You want to use popen():

Code:

---

FILE *data;
char buff[1024];

data = popen("/some/command foo bar", "r");
/* Read the output */
while(fread(buff, 1, sizeof(buff), data) > 0)
{
    /* Do something with the data */
}
pclose(data);

---

Thanks that worked perfectly. Just wondering the differences excel,fork,popen,system.When should they used and not used?
Thanks again.
Brad

Quote:

---

Just wondering the differences excel,fork,popen,system.

---

Of those functions, system() is the only one that is ANSI C -- the others are all POSIX (less portable).

You'd use fork() to . . . well, fork . . . your program. execl() would be useful for starting programs (much like system()). And popen() is useful when you need the output from the command, as you have seen.

For more information, check out some man pages. Here's one for popen(): http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/...xsh/popen.html

Incidentally, I believe system() returns an int, but you put it in a char. That's not as bad as then trying to read the char as a string. A char is obviously not a char *.

If the return value of system() wasn't 0 in that particular case, you probably would have been reading something very odd looking instead of a more friendly notice of (null).

Thank you both, that answers my question completely.
Take care,
Brad