Executing external program

[Isengard]

What I want to do is this :
When a presses "yes" in program A, I want program B, say Opera ( The webbrowser ) to execute. What would the code to get this done look like ? Preferrably code that can be used in both Linux and Windows.
( No .. I`m not writing a virus ;) )

[l01yuk]

The call you want is system(), prototype is:

#include<stdlib.h>
int system(const char *string);

It is a standard c function so it should be completely portable, (assuming you have a complient compiler).

[Bradmont]

it won't be totally portable if you provide the whole path to the executable, though, since different platforms use different formats for paths.

[Bradmont]

Why did I just post something so blatantly obvious?

[Strike]

Why did you just post a reply to your own post?

[Isengard]

:) I know .. I`m using this in a tiny project of mine, where I will develop the program to run both under windows and Linux, and yes I do know path`s are different ;)

[l01yuk]

That is where you need to coditionally compile the program. I don't think you could get away with just naming the program in windows since it doesn'tuse a path in such a comprehensive way. Always a bit dodgy to do that anyway.

Something like this:

#ifdef _ISWINDOWS
system(..
#endif

#ifdef _ISLINUX
system(..
#endif

[kmj]

Well, if you're going to be using macros to separate one platform from another, you might as well use the win32 api for windows... in that case, you can use:


CreateProcess(
LPCSTR lpApplicationName,
LPSTR lpCommandLine,
LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
lpProcessAttributes,
LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpThreadAttributes,
BOOL bInheritHandles,
DWORD dwCreationFlags,
LPVOID lpEnvironment,
LPCSTR lpCurrentDirectory,
LPSTARTUPINFOA lpStartupInfo,
LPPROCESS_INFORMATION lpProcessInformation
);

you can also use the following if you need it.

TerminateProcess(
HANDLE hProcess,
UINT uExitCode
);

[stuka]

And if ya still wanna use system(), just do something like this:#ifdef WIN32
#define EXT_PROG "C:\\Program Files\\Foo.exe"
#else
#define EXT_PROG "/bin/foo"
#endif
system(EXT_PROG)Just cuz it's cleaner.

[Isengard]

Thanks for the reply folks! :plot: