System() to string without temp file

[beakie]

Hey.

I am trying to work out how to execute the system function and keep the results in a string without writing it to a temp file. Can anyone please help? Every example I have googled uses one??

(Also, what happens if the function I run requires admin rights to execute?)

Cheers

[Dy7SLyTq]

the correct way is not use system

[beakie]

ok. what should i use? popen()?

[Dy7SLyTq]

what os r u using?

[beakie]

non specific. arch/ubuntu to start with.

[Dy7SLyTq]

then there i think you can do something with ncurses but im not sure

[beakie]

looks interesting but is there a way without using curses? i would have assumed there was something in the standard libraries.

[Dy7SLyTq]

no just system which is evil to begin with, but you cant really redirect output back into the program

[beakie]

why is system evil?

[Dy7SLyTq]

many reasons. one) its really resource heavy
two) you dont know if the program your trying to run is the right one
three) its os dependent

[Dy7SLyTq]

http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/articles/11153/

[beakie]

Thanks. I actually just found this and read it. Very informative!

The thing is, I am making something which is reliant on running third party tools.

I want to create a program with menus which can execute commands against virtualbox on a headless server. I know I could use the php client but I wanted to include some functions which aren't available using the GUI.

[beakie]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3998228/how-can-i-store-the-output-of-system-function-to-a-string

[Dy7SLyTq]

ive never needed to use third party applications so i didnt even know about it until you mentioned it so idk if thats any good but you probably did research. i just know that system is horrible

[beakie]

thanks man.