is it possible to store output of system call in windows?

Question

for ex: i want to store output of system("dir");

Thanks & Regards, calvin

Answer 1

You can either use redirection to a file (system( "dir > file" )), read that file and delete it or go the unnamed pipes way as in Unix - call CreatePipe() to create a pipe and attach it as the input/output stream in PROCESS_INFORMATION structure and pass that structure into CreateProcess().

Answer 2

Yes, look at capturing stdout from CreateProcess:

• Creating a Child Process with Redirected Input and Output.aspx)

Note that dir is a built in command under DOS. So you'll have to do something like the following system command:

• cmd.exe /c dir c:\path\to\directory

rather than just calling dir. Type cmd /? for more information on the /c parameter.

Answer 3

POSIX has a popen() function and I think that Windows has something similar called _popen().