Alternative to System() for running a batch file in a program

Question

I want to make a system were I can run a make file and several other gcc related things within a program, basically to use gcc and compile stuff within the program. If I wrote up all the stuff I want to do to a batch file then I'd need to run that batch file from within the program.

Now everyone says System() calls are extremely bad because of security and various other things. So considering I am using c++ what would be a good alternative to System() to run batch files. If preferable I would like the alternative to cross platform.

Thanks

Answer 1

You could look to use the fork and execl family of calls although these are tied down to Unix / Linux and, depending on how you use them, are arguably no safer than system.

I doubt very much that you'll find a common, cross platform way of doing this if only because all platforms will have different and unique ways of doing this. Also, the scripts you're trying to run will no doubt have to be different on different platforms and there may be different ways of specifying things such as directory paths etc.

My suggestion would be to first ask yourself how you'll take the following questions - which would be my main concerns:

• How am I going to prevent accidental / intentional misuse?
• How am I going to detect errors or success status within the scripts I'm running?
• How am I going to provide for dependencies? E.g. script A must run completely and correctly before script B runs.
• How am I going to report the success and failure state.

My final question would be why do you want to do this in C++? Is there a specific reason? Naturally I'm a C++ evangelist although I would have thought this would be better tackled by a scripting language such as Perl, Python or possibly Bash unless you're embarking on something far more radical.