Is it possible to use system() and get the return value from the system call
 

I wanted to do something like this:

buffer = system(/sbin/ifconfig eth0);

this isnt exactly what i'm doing but i have a script that when run from the prompt it returns the IPaddr of eth0. I would like the characters that usually are printed to the screen to be thrown into a local buffer in my C code. can this be done with system or should i use exec or anything else? Thank you in advance, I really appreciate all of your help.

man popen()