hi all,

just wondering how it was done to call external procedures from a c++ application. eg. how would i go about calling tar or mv or cp or whatever from a c++ app. what libraries would i need to include. i read part of a pdf book on linux programming which brushed over this, but it wasn't quite clear to me where you get the libraries. is it one main one being glibc or are there individual libraries for each app, etc.

thanks,
drisay

is fork and exec the way to go?

Functions to do this are in standard library. You don't need to specify some library.

The most simple function way to execute an external program is just: system("/bin/ls");

popen() is another function to execute an external program while capturing the standard output of it into your own program.

The "real" stuff is: fork() in combination with one of the exec()-family of functions.

Please read these man pages for more info:
man system
man popen
man fork
man exec

And here's a freely downloadable book which has an entire chapter on the subject: http://www.advancedlinuxprogramming.com/

You could also search this forum, as it has been asked and answered many times before...