How do I read the results of a system() ca

Question

I'm using the following code to try to read the results of a df command in Linux using popen.

#include <iostream> // file and std I/O functions

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    FILE* fp;
    char * buffer;
    long bufSize;
    size_t ret_code;

    fp = popen("df", "r");
    if(fp == NULL) { // head off errors reading the results
        std::cerr << "Could not execute command: df" << std::endl;
        exit(1);
    }

    // get the size of the results
    fseek(fp, 0, SEEK_END);
    bufSize = ftell(fp);
    rewind(fp);

    // allocate the memory to contain the results
    buffer = (char*)malloc( sizeof(char) * bufSize );
    if(buffer == NULL) {
        std::cerr << "Memory error." << std::endl;
        exit(2);
    }

    // read the results into the buffer
    ret_code = fread(buffer, 1, sizeof(buffer), fp);
    if(ret_code != bufSize) {
        std::cerr << "Error reading output." << std::endl;
        exit(3);
    }

    // print the results
    std::cout << buffer << std::endl;

    // clean up
    pclose(fp);
    free(buffer);
    return (EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

This code is giving me a "Memory error" with an exit status of '2', so I can see where it's failing, I just don't understand why.

I put this together from example code that I found on Ubuntu Forums and C++ Reference, so I'm not married to it. If anyone can suggest a better way to read the results of a system() call, I'm open to new ideas.

EDIT to the original: Okay, bufSize is coming up negative, and now I understand why. You can't randomly access a pipe, as I naively tried to do.

I can't be the first person to try to do this. Can someone give (or point me to) an example of how to read the results of a system() call into a variable in C++?

Answer 1

To answer the question in the update:

char buffer[1024];
char * line = NULL;
while ((line = fgets(buffer, sizeof buffer, fp)) != NULL) {
    // parse one line of df's output here.
}

Would this be enough?

Answer 2

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer. A co-worker pointed me to the ostringstream class. Here's some example code that does essentially what I was attempting to do in the original question.

#include <iostream> // cout
#include <sstream> // ostringstream

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
    FILE* stream = popen( "df", "r" );
    std::ostringstream output;

    while( !feof( stream ) && !ferror( stream ))
    {
        char buf[128];
        int bytesRead = fread( buf, 1, 128, stream );
        output.write( buf, bytesRead );
    }
    std::string result = output.str();
    std::cout << "<RESULT>" << std::endl << result << "</RESULT>" << std::endl;
    return (0);
}

Answer 3

check your bufSize. ftell can return -1 on error, and this can lead to nonallocation by malloc with buffer having a NULL value.

The reason for the ftell to fail is, because of the popen. You cant search pipes.

Answer 4

(A note on terminology: "system call" in Unix and Linux generally refers to calling a kernel function from user-space code. Referring to it as "the results of a system() call" or "the results of a system(3) call" would be clearer, but it would probably be better to just say "capturing the output of a process.")

Anyway, you can read a process's output just like you can read any other file. Specifically:

• You can start the process using pipe(), fork(), and exec(). This gives you a file descriptor, then you can use a loop to read() from the file descriptor into a buffer and close() the file descriptor once you're done. This is the lowest level option and gives you the most control.
• You can start the process using popen(), as you're doing. This gives you a file stream. In a loop, you can read using from the stream into a temporary variable or buffer using fread(), fgets(), or fgetc(), as Zarawesome's answer demonstrates, then process that buffer or append it to a C++ string.
• You can start the process using popen(), then use the nonstandard __gnu_cxx::stdio_filebuf to wrap that, then create an std::istream from the stdio_filebuf and treat it like any other C++ stream. This is the most C++-like approach. Here's part 1 and part 2 of an example of this approach.

Answer 5

You're making this all too hard. popen(3) returns a regular old FILE * for a standard pipe file, which is to say, newline terminated records. You can read it with very high efficiency by using fgets(3) like so in C:

#include <stdio.h>
char bfr[BUFSIZ] ;
FILE * fp;
// ...
if((fp=popen("/bin/df", "r")) ==NULL) {
   // error processing and return
}
// ...
while(fgets(bfr,BUFSIZ,fp) != NULL){
   // process a line
}

In C++ it's even easier --

#include <cstdio>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

FILE * fp ;

if((fp= popen("/bin/df","r")) == NULL) {
    // error processing and exit
}

ifstream ins(fileno(fp)); // ifstream ctor using a file descriptor

string s;
while (! ins.eof()){
    getline(ins,s);
    // do something
}

There's some more error handling there, but that's the idea. The point is that you treat the FILE * from popen just like any FILE *, and read it line by line.

Answer 6

I'm not sure you can fseek/ftell pipe streams like this.

Have you checked the value of bufSize ? One reason malloc be failing is for insanely sized buffers.