Capturing program feedback... (not sure what to call it)
 

i'm working on a little project in kdevelop in c++
i need to know how to get the feedback from a system command to where i can use it. i'm not really sure what terminology i should be using here, forgive me.

what i mean is like if i ran said this:
system(/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start);

i need some way to get what it the program's output was in terminal, for example, if it couldn't do this for some reason like 'file not found' how could i get that file not found message and put it in, um..., a QString or something? So like i could do something like this:
feedbackBox->append(where-ever-i-get-the-feedback-from());

sorry if im unclear on what i want, i cant really help it...
any information on this subject line would be useful

thx in advance,
llama

It sounds like you might find popen() useful. You use it, and then do traditional file I/O routines to read the command's output.

man popen for more details of course...

EDIT: while not strictly C++, it will still work. I don't know if there is a C++ equivalent (that would create an iostream class for instance).

that works and returns what i want but it gives it as a const char and i need it in a QString for the widget im using to accept it. any ideas on how to convert a char into a QString???

Sorry, I can't help there. I've never done any programming with the Qt library.

I would find it hard to believe that there's no overloaded '=' operator for a QString though. Something like: (QString) = (char *) or (QString) += (char *).

If they don't exist, my impression of the Qt library just dropped a couple notches...