How to set pointer for environment variable

I have 2 loaders (loader1 and loader2). I also have a Pinger which depends on the call i give will execute either loader1 or loader2. I have problem that the pointer strloaderPath. The problem like you see below if i call loader1 this program will execute loader by getting the environment variable. So the first time I call loader1 strloaderPath will get the env variable which will be c:\program Files\ then it will use strcat to add loader1.exe to execute it. Now if i want to execute loader2 when strloaderPath get the environment variable it will get it wrong it will get c:\program files\loader1.exe which is wrong because it should only get c:\program files then if i do strcat it should show c:\program files\loader2.exe and not c:\program files\loader1.exe\loader2.exe

switch (Status)
{
case RFX_SUCCESS:
char strLog[20];
char strLoader[256];
char *pFind;
int lLength;
char *strLoaderPath;

strLoaderPath = getenv("BSI_CF_DIR");
if (Request.APIType == RFX_USE_RF_API) {
pFind = strstr(strLoaderPath, "loader1.exe");
if (pFind == NULL){
strcat(strLoaderPath, "\\loader1.exe ");}
}
else {
pFind = strstr(strLoaderPath, "loader2.exe");
if (pFind == NULL){
strcat(strLoaderPath, "\\loader2.exe ");}
}
itoa(Request.RequestNumber,strLog,10);
strcat(strLoader, strLog);
strcat(strLoader, " ");
strcat(strLoader, Request.DataSetID);
STARTUPINFO si;
::ZeroMemory(&si, sizeof(STARTUPINFO));
si.cb = sizeof(STARTUPINFO);
PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
lLength = CreateProcess(NULL,strLoader,NULL,NULL,FALSE,CREAT E_NEW_CONSOLE,NULL,NULL,&si, &pi);
if (! lLength){
error("CreateProcess failed");}
break;
}

USE CODE TAGS

Good reply Sly!! I hope you like the appending to my sig, and suggest you copy! The colors really bring out your eyes!

spiky1 - lots of people won't look at your code unless you wrap code tags around it -

Code:

---

switch (Status)
{
case RFX_SUCCESS:
char strLog[20];
char strLoader[256];
char *pFind;
int lLength;
char *strLoaderPath;

strLoaderPath = getenv("BSI_CF_DIR");
if (Request.APIType == RFX_USE_RF_API) {
pFind = strstr(strLoaderPath, "loader1.exe");
if (pFind == NULL){
strcat(strLoaderPath, "\\loader1.exe ");}
}
else {
pFind = strstr(strLoaderPath, "loader2.exe");
if (pFind == NULL){
strcat(strLoaderPath, "\\loader2.exe ");}
}
itoa(Request.RequestNumber,strLog,10);
strcat(strLoader, strLog);
strcat(strLoader, " ");
strcat(strLoader, Request.DataSetID);
STARTUPINFO si;
::ZeroMemory(&si, sizeof(STARTUPINFO));
si.cb = sizeof(STARTUPINFO);
PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
lLength = CreateProcess(NULL,strLoader,NULL,NULL,FALSE,CREAT E_NEW_CONSOLE,NULL,NULL,&si, &pi);
if (! lLength){
error("CreateProcess failed");}
break;
}

---

>lots of people won't look at your code unless you wrap code tags around it
And the same amount of people won't look at unformatted code even if you wrap code tags around it.

[edit]
But since this is a relatively simple problem, just make a copy of the environment variable before changing it.
[/edit]

>> And the same amount of people won't look at unformatted code even if you wrap code tags around it.

I can't do everything for the OP ;)

>strLoaderPath = getenv("BSI_CF_DIR");
What you want to do is strcpy() the string returned by getenv() to a buffer, then strcat() to that:

Code:

---

//Make strLoaderPath a buffer, not a pointer
char strLoaderPath[256];
char *p = getenv("BSI_CF_DIR");
if (p == NULL)
{
  //Error could not find environment variable
}
//Now strcpy() to a buffer
strcpy(strLoaderPath, p);

---

>itoa(Request.RequestNumber,strLog,10);
>strcat(strLoader, strLog);
>strcat(strLoader, " ");
>strcat(strLoader, Request.DataSetID);
Here you could make use of sprintf() or a stringstream if you want to do it the c++ way.

Code:

---

//Include <cstdio> at the top of your program.
.
.
sprintf(strLoader, "%d %s", Request.RequestNumber, Request.DataSetID);

---

I'd recommend using <string>s. It makes strcatting etc much easier, IMO.


>strcat(strLoader, strLog);
>strcat(strLoader, " ");
>strcat(strLoader, Request.DataSetID);

then changes to -
stdLoader += strLog + " " + Request.DataSetID;

Thank you so much. I tried what you suggested and it did work. The only change I did is the way the pointer p because it gave me an error with the initialization so I did it in 2 steps and it did work.

Thanks again