Thread: Executing system commands cross platform

Hi,

I am writing a CppUnit test framework, and I need to execute system commands. Each of the commands will take about 5 minutes to complete, and I need to wait for the results. I was going to use a fork(), and then execute the command and wait for this process to complete. The problem is that this will only work on linux, and I need to be able to run the tests under windows. It would be helpful if I didnt have to change the tests for windows and linux. Does anyone know a way to execute system commands and wait for the command to complete on both windows and linux?

Thanks in advance
Mark

Well the command I am executing will be the same, as it is a program that works on both platforms. But I need to be able to call it from the linux shell and from the dos shell. This program will produce an output after a few minutes. So I need to wait for the program to finish. It will produce an out put file and this is what I need to check. So is there some way to execute a program in linux and windows and wait for it to finish. For example, is there some way for the system() function in c++ to tell me if the program has finished?

Thanks

Ok, But will the system() function wait until the program has finished before returning control to the program?

yes, on MS-Windows system() waits for the program to terminate. I assume *nix has the same behavior.

yeah, that works.
Thanks alot