How to catch the result of linux command

I am writing a cgi in c and try to figure out how to print out
the result from linux command.

ex: print of the result of "date" or "ls"

Can anyone give me some hint or search keyword to begin with?

I tried execl() but it seems I am not use it correctly .

Thanks

the exec* family of commands do not return unless something went horribly wrong. They replace the current running process with an image of the new one.

I think you want system()

> I am writing a cgi in c
Hello security holes.
You'd better make sure there are no buffer overflow possibilities in that code.

> how to print out the result from linux command.
Are any of the commands the result of anything the user can type in at the web interface?
If so, hello to more security holes. You need to strongly verify the names of any programs which you get requests to run.

Try using a pipe

Code:

---

FILE *fp = popen("ls -l", "r" );
if ( fp != NULL ) {
  /* read lines using fgets(), just like you would with a regular file  */
  pclose( fp );
}

---

Better make sure your stuff is running as nobody, but I rather suspect it's running as root.
Oh well.....

Thanks for the response.

I tried it but still not quit sure how to make it work.
Maybe I didn't state it clearly.

I need to use cgi to run some linux command and display
the result to a HTML page.
I tried system("ls") but it seems not work.

Is it possible to provide me some sample concept code?

I am not quit sure how to handling the security issue but
I will do some research after I figure things out.

Thanks for remind me that.

Best,

> and display the result to a HTML page.
Assuming you can display text of your choice, I just did show you how to do it.

Is it possible to catch all result and store in a char* and print it out
later?

like ..

printf("<TR><TD></TD></TR>"); and print the linux "Date"
command within the <TD></TD> tag?

You mean like

Code:

---

printf( "<TR><TD>" );
{
  FILE *fp = popen("date", "r" );
  if ( fp != NULL ) {
    char buff[BUFSIZ];
    while ( fgets( buff, sizeof buff, fp ) != NULL ) {
      puts( buff );
    }
    pclose( fp );
  }
}
printf( "</TD></TR>" );

---

Though for something that simple, calling time() and strftime() would be much more efficient.

It seems work.

I don't really wanna use "date" but some function I wrote.
date is just for testing.

thanks for your help.

I am really not a c guy but suddently I need to face it.

How can I split the result I got from Linux command?

If I got IP address 255.255.255.255, how can I store them
to a array of string or to 4 different string.

Best, :p

Do you want to split it in the shell command (say using the 'tr' utility), or split it inside the C program (say using sscanf) ?

I think I would like to know how to do it in C program

If you don't mind, I would like to learn both of them.
In case I need them in the future so I know how to deal with it.

Actually I will run a customize shell script to return bunch of
information from a device.
The responsed output will like .ini file format.
[xxx]
name=value
name2=value2
name3=255.255.255.255
name4=1,2,3,4

I need to parse those value out to generate a HTML forum by cgi

For example I need to use 4
<input type=text ..> to display the ip value

thanks for your quick response

best,