Thread: Getting System Output into C

Hi folks,

I am newbie to Linux programming but not a Linux newbie. I am writing a C program for gathering statistical data from remote Linux machines. I need to know how can I call other executables and store the results into a character array.

Example:
I want to obtain the total system memory status. If this was at the command line, I would write

Code:

free -m

and this will display the current memory status.

However, I want to be able to make this call from my C program and store the result into a character array.

I've looked into the exec set of functions but none of these allow me to store the output of the commands I pass as parameters into my character array.

Any help is appreciated!

Originally Posted by Salem

Perhaps use the popen() call?

Thank you! That was eye opening!