file descriptor redirection

Dear All,

can any one help me regarding this.

I am executing an process.
I dont want its input and output to be displayed on screen. Is it possible to assign the input and output file descriptors to /dev/null..
if so can any one give me a sample code.

Thanks in advance.

I'm not sure what redirecting stdin to /dev/null would do, but it would look like this:

Code:

---

$ ./myprocess < /dev/null > /dev/null

---

You can do this also $ ./myprocess > /dev/null 2>&1
or you can do $./myprocess | 2>&1

Dear All,


Is this works?

int main()
{
fd = open("/dev/null", O_RDWR);
dup2(fd,0);
dup2(fd,1);
dup2(fd,2);
whiel(1)
{
printf("Hello world");
perror("Error");
}

}
or it creates any problem to my process?
Can any one explain me problem arise when i redirect STDIN to /dev/null.

The code you have written will work fine.
But it wont show u anything on terminal.
neither it will ask to input any nor show output.

But what exactly u need to do?

Dear maven,

My process previously gets inputs from user and displays errors/output in terminal.Also it reads files and does some functionalities.
now i want to run my process in background, it should not ask for input, and it should not display output or errors in terminal. But i want its file related operations to be done by it.

Is it correct to redirect input file descriptor to /dev/null? or does it creates any problem internally?

Kindly reply.....

Thanks..

Does your process actually read anything from STDIN?

If it does, then reading from /dev/null will just give you an infinite stream of \0, which your program isn't going to make much sense of.

If you're not reading input, and not interested in output, the usual thing to do is just close descriptors, not redirect them.
As in
close(0);
close(1);
close(2);

The problem is i when close the input/output/error file descriptors and then if i open an new file, the file descriptor 0 is assigned to this new file and all my general outputs like "Success" is dumped in the newly opened file.

My program has thousands of printfs and scanf's and i cant mask them all ....

It looks like you're stuck with the approach you have then, it you want to prevent 0,1,2 from being re-used by other open commands later on.

Do you mean to say ... Through same function, once u want to get input and give output from terminal and once u dont want to get input and give output from terminal.

Ya u r rite i have one boolean check like this

Code:

---

#define TERMINALMASK  0 or 1
int main ()
{

if (TERMINALMASK == SET)
{
fd = open("/dev/null", O_RDWR);
dup2(fd,0);
dup2(fd,1);
dup2(fd,2);
close(fd);
}
else
{
/*do nothing*/
}
whiel(1)
{
When i get message from other process or i get user input to change file content
{
open a file
read file
write file
printf("success");
close file;
}
}

return 0;
}

---

This is sample code.
i want to run my process like deamon. The user should not know weather it is running or not.
So if i assign output and error fd to /dev/null it wont create problem.
I want to know is it proper to assign input fd to /dev/null?

Ignoring the infinite syntax errors with the above code, Where has 'SET' come from?
It's while not whiel, usually psuedo code isn't C mixed in with some wacky made up syntax, it's supposed to describe what your doing (such as an algorithm).

So basically you want to run it in the background?

I didnt give entire code.....

i gave that code for understanding , how code looks.. pls ignore the syntax dar...

i wnat to know if i do dup2(fd,2); in my code is it correct and work fine?

Why do you insist on sending it to /dev/null?, your not going to see any performance increase...

Test it! And see if it works, don't ask if its going to work, technically it's legal but im not sure it *should* be done to the 'special streams' (stdin, stdout and stderr). However those streams exist for a reason...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by http://man.he.net/man2/dup2

int dup2(int oldfd, int newfd);

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by http://man.he.net/man2/dup2

dup2 makes newfd be the copy of oldfd, closing newfd first
if necessary.

---

---

So its

Code:

---

if(dup2(2, fd) == -1)
{
    /* failed to... */
}

---

And if you close fd, your probably going to close '2'... You should also really refer to the stream by it's name, (stdin, stdout and stderr) since some wacky system might define them differently, unless they're not allowed?

Ok Fine.....
Thanks every one for ur support.....
Thanks again..

You could have just googled for how to create a daemon process...

http://www.enderunix.org/docs/eng/daemon.php