When I write a C program, and use the system command in the middle of the program to take advantage of one of UNIX commands,

does the UNIX command become a part of the binary C program, or is the C program going to call the UNIX command whenever necessary?

the reason I am asking this is, because I might run the C program under different UNIX systems~

Thanks, experts @ Linux Questions~

No, otherwise using system() on an input, which may change, would need the entire system compiled in

As a caveat, consider finding a library or wrapper for the command you want, security and speed concerns

It calls the Unix command---just as if it were calling a kernel function defined in the API.

The only way to make the command part of your binary would be to get the source and compile it in.

1 members found this post helpful.

excellent answer, old friend pixellany~~ might need some more help from you shortly.

well maybe I can ask right now.

Can we find the source code of just about any UNIX command? and integrate into our C programs? or... source code of programs equivalent to well-known UNIX commands?

pixel you are da (wo)man

A good place to get many unix command is busybox
(clean and compact code!)

http://busybox.net/

bye
giammy

Yes and no, it depends on the command version, for example you can find the source code of the GNU version as they are free, and so it is for the system calls: if you're using *BSD, OpenSolaris or Linux, you can find system calls source codes, but you can't for proprietary UNIX version like AIX, Solaris, HP-UX...

C is the UNIX native language... The implication is that you'll find a C library for almost all UNIX standard utilities, whatever they're closed or not. I'm mean, you don't need to access the function source code to call it in your C program, you only need a library to link on and a header file. If it wasn't the case nobody won't be able to program anything on a closed sources OS (excepting the OS owner)... The difficulties are to find the C interface regarding what you want to do, google is your friend here, and write C code portable along different UNIX flavor, if you need to, since sometimes functions interface could slightly differe...