Thread: Having trouble with fork(), pipe(), dup2() and exec() (pipes exercise)

Here's my code:

Code:

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <stdlib.h>
    #include <unistd.h>
    #include <wait.h>
    #include <readline/readline.h>
    
    int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    	char *bBuffer, *sPtr, *aPtr = NULL, *pipeComms[2], *cmdArgs[10];
        int fdPipe[2], pCount, aCount, i, status;
        pid_t pid;
    	
        pipe(fdPipe);
    	
    	while(1) {
    		bBuffer = readline("Shell> ");
    		
    		if(!strcasecmp(bBuffer, "exit")) {
    			return 0;
    		}
    		
    		sPtr = bBuffer;
    		pCount = -1;
    		
    		do {
    			aPtr = strsep(&sPtr, "|");
    			pipeComms[++pCount] = aPtr;
    		} while(aPtr);
    		
    		for(i = 0; i < pCount; i++) {
    			aCount = -1;
    			
    			do {
    				aPtr = strsep(&pipeComms[i], " ");
    				cmdArgs[++aCount] = aPtr;
    			} while(aPtr);
    			
    			if(strlen(cmdArgs[0]) > 0) {
    				pid = fork();
    				
    				if(pid == 0) {
    					if(i == 0) {
    						close(fdPipe[0]);
    						
    						dup2(fdPipe[1], STDOUT_FILENO);
    						
    						close(fdPipe[1]);
    					} else if(i == 1) {
    						close(fdPipe[1]);
    						
    						dup2(fdPipe[0], STDIN_FILENO);
    						
    						close(fdPipe[0]);
    					}
    					
    					execvp(cmdArgs[0], cmdArgs);
    				} else {
    					waitpid(pid, &status, 0);
    					
    					if(WIFEXITED(status)) {
    						printf("[%d] TERMINATED (Status: %d)\n",
    							pid, WEXITSTATUS(status));
    					}
    				}
    			}
    		}
    	}
    	
    	return 0;
    }

Here's the test case where this fails:

Code:

    nazgulled ~/Projects/SO/G08 $ ls -l
    total 8
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled  7181 2009-05-27 17:44 a.out
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled   754 2009-05-27 01:42 data.h
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled  1305 2009-05-27 17:50 main.c
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled   320 2009-05-27 01:42 makefile
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled 14408 2009-05-27 17:21 prog
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled  9276 2009-05-27 17:21 prog.c
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled 10496 2009-05-27 17:21 prog.o
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled    16 2009-05-27 17:19 test
    nazgulled ~/Projects/SO/G08 $ ./a.out 
    Shell> ls -l|grep prog
    [4804] TERMINATED (Status: 0)
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled 14408 2009-05-27 17:21 prog
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled  9276 2009-05-27 17:21 prog.c
    -rwxr-xr-x 1 nazgulled nazgulled 10496 2009-05-27 17:21 prog.o

The problem is that I should return to my shell after that, I should see "Shell> " waiting for more input. You can also notice that you don't see a message similar to "[4804] TERMINATED (Status: 0)" (but with a different pid), which means the second process didn't terminate.

I think it has something to do with grep, because this works:

Code:

    nazgulled ~/Projects/SO/G08 $ ./a.out 
    Shell> echo q|sudo fdisk /dev/sda
    [4838] TERMINATED (Status: 0)
    
    The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1305.
    There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
    and could in certain setups cause problems with:
    1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
    2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
       (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
    
    Command (m for help): 
    [4839] TERMINATED (Status: 0)

You can easily see two "terminate" messages...

So, what's wrong with my code?

P.S: There's no error handling on purpose, this code is just like a proof of concept to show off my problem...

Anyone please?

I've realized the problem was the fact that I wasn't closing the pipes on the parent and grep was still waiting for and EOF to finish.

Now I'm having a more important issue.

As you can see, the code will only work for 2 piped commands, now I need to make it work for N commands. But I have no clue how to do such thing...

Any help is appreciated.

Originally Posted by Nazgulled

I've realized the problem was the fact that I wasn't closing the pipes on the parent and grep was still waiting for and EOF to finish.
Now I'm having a more important issue.

I hope you mean it this time, "one named" Nazgulled.