I'm a newbie to C++, but was wondering if and how it might be possible to run programs from a C++ program... Is it a difficult task? Or maybe just take information from a program... or find $HOMEDIR or anything useful... I've got basic concepts, I'm looking to make some practical use out of them. Any pointer in the right direction would be appreciated. I just feel sorta bummed doing the same old reading and writing to text files and savings account and enter data print data, blah blah, I never seem to get past that point when it comes to programming because I don't really know what direction to go.

Note:

To run a program from your program you can use the calls system() (man system )and the exec() family of functions (man 3 exec).

To make your programs 'talk' with each other you can see the pipe() (man pipe ), dup() (man dup) . It could also be interessing to take a look at the fork()

Note that what as said above could be used within a C program but I think that you should be able to use it with your C++ programs too .

Hope that helps ... and have fun