How to convert system command output to string ?

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I Want to convert the output of this code to string type , but i cant make it.

C++

#pragma warning(disable : 4996)
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
    char cmd[10];
    strcpy(cmd, "dir");
    system(cmd);
}

What I have tried:

I tried to convert that using stringstream and other methods , none of them worked.

Posted 16-Oct-22 11:39am

Death Smoke

Updated 19-Oct-22 2:35am

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3 solutions

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merano99 · Answer 1 · 2022-10-16T13:48:00

The command system() creates a new process to handle the specified command.

C

char cmd[10];
strcpy(cmd, "dir");
system(cmd);

In most cases, this is neither performant nor useful. But of course you can start a process with C this way. You could also redirect the output to a file and then read this file again. More performant and without needing a file you can realize this by using system calls. The effort is not insignificant, since you have to redirect inputs and outputs to a pipe before starting the process instead of simply system(). While on Unix you would use a combination on fork(), pipe() and exec() this could be solved as follows on Windows:
Creating a Child Process with Redirected Input and Output
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/procthread/creating-a-child-process-with-redirected-input-and-output

If you only want to get the contents of a directory, you can use the combination of FindFirstFile() and FindNextFile().

Listing the Files in a Directory
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/listing-the-files-in-a-directory

Alexandrnn · Answer 2 · 2022-10-19T02:24:00

Solution 2

C

#include <iostream>
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
	system("dir");
	puts((char*)stdin);
}

C++

#include <iostream>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main()
{
	char cmd[10];
	strcpy_s(cmd, 10, "dir");
	system(cmd);
	puts((char*)stdin);
}

Posted 19-Oct-22 2:24am

Alexandrnn

Updated 19-Oct-22 2:27am

Comments

merano99 20-Oct-22 17:33pm

+5; iostream not needet, stdlib missing

Death Smoke 20-Oct-22 18:50pm

I Didnt understand your solution can you explain for me more how i can use that output as string ?

Alexandrnn 21-Oct-22 4:32am

char strs[1024];

while(fgets(strs,1024, stdin)) puts(strs);

CPallini · Answer 3 · 2022-10-19T02:35:00

Solution 3

Are you possibly searching for popen?
See, for instance: The Marvelous popen() Function | C For Dummies Blog[^]

Posted 19-Oct-22 2:35am

CPallini

Comments

merano99 20-Oct-22 17:34pm

+5

CPallini 21-Oct-22 6:02am

Thank you.

How to convert system command output to string ?

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How to convert system command output to string ?

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