CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++unix
Mike
Mike

Reputation: 963

How do I get shell output from system()?

I'm calling system() to trigger a command. I can see the output of the command in the Xcode console – but I don't know how to capture it in a string.

I tried setting a string to the system() call itself, but the string was set to 0.

This is the code I wrote: 

string node = "/usr/local/bin/node ~/Desktop/chromix-master/script/chromix.js ";
string commandStr = node + "url";
char command[1024];
strcpy(command,commandStr.c_str());
system(command);

Specifically, I'm trying to get the URL of the currently focused tab in chrome using smblott's Chromix utility.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 254

Answers (1)

Greg Hewgill
Greg Hewgill

Reputation: 992975

Instead of using system(), use popen() to open a pipe from which you can read the program output.

FILE *p = popen(command, "r");
// ... use p as a file
pclose(p);

Upvotes: 1

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