Run a bash script with C++ on Windows - c++

I am trying to write a program in C++ that can execute a bash script on Windows and then read the output of the bash script and store it into a string or something like that. Is this even possible without installing any extra software on Windows? If so, how?
Also, would it work if I wrote the program on Linux with a Posix library and then cross-compiled the C++ program for Windows inside Linux and then move it over to Windows where it needs to execute the bash script?

You can use the popen function.
FILE *fp;
fp = popen("bash script.sh", "r");
Now you can read the output just like you would read a file. Example:
char output[100];
fgets(output, sizeof(output), fp);

Related

Qtcreator get stdin from a file instead of terminal

I am making a program that reads from stdin.
I want to debug the program in qtcreator but I can't find a way of providing input except using the terminal. Which is not very practical because my input is a big file with a lot of lines.
I tried going to the run options of qtcreator and insert the following in the Command Line Arguments: < filename
But Qtcreator gave me an error in the application output:
14:26:54: Debugging complex shell commands in a terminal is currently not supported.
Is there no way of providing a file as stdin in qtcreator?

How can I open a new terminal from C ++ code and write inside it

How can I open a new terminal from C ++ code and write inside it. I know how to open new terminal by using system command (system("/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal")), but do not know how to write string in it ? I'm working on an operating system mac os.
In Linux you can do so
std :: string cmd = "gnome-terminal-x sh-c 'ls-l; exec bash'";
system (cmd.c_str ());
how to do it in the mac os ?
Your basic mechanism of calling system() should still work, you just need a different command.
One way to do this is by running AppleScript from the command line via osascript. You can use the "AppleScript Editor" application (and use the Library command in its Window menu) to learn more about all the commands that can be given to programs in this way.
For example, to make the Mac Terminal run top, I could invoke this command line:
/usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to do script "top"'
Similarly, if I'd already written an entire file of commands to run, I could give it a .command extension and ask Terminal to open the file instead:
/usr/bin/osascript -e 'tell application "Terminal" to open "/Users/me/Desktop/MyFile.command"'

system() c++ wont run in VirtualBox

I'm trying to compile and run the app, which was created 4 years ago. It was developed for Windows in Embarcadero RAD Studio C++ builder. Now I try to compile and run it in Windows in VirtualBox using the latest version of RAD Studio. I have a system call to another app in my app:
system("dot.exe -Tjpg -o nfa.jpg NFA_graph.txt");
It keeps returning 1 and the file is not created. I also tried
system("Echo %CD% >> z:\log.txt");
and the file is not created. I also tried like this:
FILE *fpipe;
char *command = "Echo %CD% >> z:\log.txt";
char line[256];
if (0 == (fpipe = (FILE*)_popen(command, "r")))
{
perror("popen() failed.");
exit(1);
}
while (fread(line, sizeof line, 1, fpipe))
{
ShowMessage(line);
}
_pclose(fpipe);
And nothing I get. I wonder if the reason of such strange behaviour is that I'm running this all in VirtualBox?
You're not escaping your \ characters. You should use / in file paths, or \\ if you must. In addition, Windows 7 won't let you write to the root directory of a hard drive w/o administrator access.
To determine if a command environment is available, first do this:
if (!system(NULL)) {
// Can't make any system() calls
}
If your command environment is available, then you need to fully specify the path, making sure to escape the \'s like I mentioned above, and don't write anything to a drive's root directory. Also make note that opening files does not default create directories.
No, it's very unlikely. I see few issues with your code: you did not check errno if system() returns 1. It can help you to spot a real problem. Also, all backslashes must be Esc'ed.
I'm suggesting that dot.exe is not in PATH environment variable, that's the reason of the system() failure.

What is a 'shebang' line?

Currently I'm trying to start programming on my new Mac. I installed TextWrangler, and chose C++ as my language of choice; since I have some prior knowledge of it, from when I used Windows.
So, I wrote the ever so common "Hello World" program. Although, when I tried to run it, I got an error:
"This file doesn’t appear to contain a valid ‘shebang’ line (application error code: 13304)"
I tried searching the error code to find out how to fix this, but I couldn't find anything.. I have no idea what a 'shebang' line is... Can someone help me out?
You need to compile it with a compiler first. I assume you tried to run the source file like ./source but C++ doesn't work this way.
With some compilers however, you can provide a shebang-line as the first line of the source file (the #! is known as shebang or crunchbang, hence the name), like so:
#!/path/to/compiler
So that the shell knows what application is used to run that sort of file, and when you attempt to run the source file by itself, the compiler will compile and run it for you. That's a compiler-dependent feature though, so I recommend just plain compiling with G++ or whatever Macs use to get an executable, then run that.
While I wouldn't recommend it for regular C++ development, I'm using a simple shell script wrapper for small C++ utilities. Here is a Hello World example:
#if 0 // -- build and run wrapper script for C++ ------------------------------
TMP=$(mktemp -d)
c++ -o ${TMP}/a.out ${0} && ${TMP}/a.out ${#:1} ; RV=${?}
rm -rf ${TMP}
exit ${RV}
#endif // ----------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <iostream>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
std::cout << "Hello world" << std::endl;
return 0;
}
It does appear that you are trying to run the source file directly, however you will need to compile using a C++ compiler, such as that included in the gcc (GNU Compiler Collection) which contains the C++ compiler g++ for the Mac. It is not included with the Mac, you have to download it first:
from http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/726/mac-os-x-install-gcc-compiler/ : "To install the gcc compiler, download the xcode package from http://connect.apple.com/. You’ll need to register for an Apple Developer Connection account. Once you’ve registered, login and click Download Software and then Developer Tools. Find the Download link next to Xcode Tools (version) – CD Image and click it!"
Once it's installed, if you are going for a quick Hello World, then, from a terminal window in the directory of your source file, you can execute the command g++ HelloWorld.cpp -o HelloWorld. Then you should be able to run it as ./HelloWorld.
Also, if you're coming from a Visual Studio world, you might want to give Mono and MonoDevelop a try. Mono is a free implementation of C# (and other languages), and MonoDevelop is an IDE which is very similar to Visual Studio. MonoDevelop supports C# and other .NET languages, including Visual Basic .NET, as well as C/C++ development. I have not used it extensively, but it does seem to be very similar to VS, so you won't have to learn new everything all in a day. I also have used KDevelop, which I liked a lot while I was using it, although that's been a while now. It has a lot of support for GNU-style development in C/C++, and was very powerful as I recall.
Good luck with your endeavors!
Links:
Mono: http://mono-project.com/Main_Page
MonoDevelop: http://monodevelop.com/
KDevelop: http://kdevelop.org/
shebang is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29.
not sure why your program is not running. you will need to compile and link to make an executable.
What I find confusing (/interesting) is C++ program giving "Shebang line" error. Shebang line is a way for the Unix like operating system to specify which program should be used to interpret the rest of the file. The shebang line usually points to the path of the interpreter. C++ is a compiled language and does not have interpreter for it.
To get the real technical details of how shebang lines work, do a man execve and get that man page online here - man execve.
If you're on a mac then doing something like this on the commandline:
g++ -o program program.cpp
Will compile and link your program into an executable called program. Then you can run it like:
./program
The reason you got the 'shebang' error is probably because you tried to run the cpp file like:
./program.cpp
And the shell tries to find an interpreter to run the code in the file. Because this is C++ there is no relevant interpreter but if your file contains Python or Bash then having a line like this
#!/usr/bin/python
at the 1st line in your source file will tell the shell to use the python interpreter
The lines that start with a pattern like this: #!/.../.../.. is called a shebang line. In other words, a shebang is the character sequence consisting of the characters number sign and exclamation mark (#!).In Unix-like operating systems, when a text file with a shebang is used as if it is an executable, the program loader mechanism parses the rest of the file's initial line as an interpreter directive. The loader executes the specified interpreter program, passing to it as an argument the path that was initially used when attempting to run the script, so that the program may use the file as input data.

Mac OSX and Unix quick questions

I have 3 questions. I am making a C++ executable to launch a Perl program I made. I will compile it for Winows, Mac OSX and Linux. It's pretty much just: system("perl progam.pl");
When compiled with Mac OSX, the program starts in ~. How would I get it to start in the dir it was launched from, or is it just a problem with the compiler?
I'm using - echo -n -e "\033[0;Program\007" - in an attempt to make the windows title "Program". Is this is best way?
I'm using - echo -n -e "\033[7;30;47m" - to make the background of the window black. Is this the best way?
Thanks.
This sounds like something Finder is doing. Launching the app from a shell should work as you expect.
Use tput
See answer to 2, above.
On Mac OS/Unix, invoking system does not change the current working dir. When executing program.pl the current working directory is the same from which you executed the C++ executable. When you launch the executable using Launch Services (e.g. the Finder) the working directory should be /.
On #1 you can refer to the current directory with ./ so system("perl ./progam.pl"); should do it assuming both scripts are sitting in the same folder. ../program.pl would be one level higher.
For #1, use getcwd & then pass an explicit path to system:
cwd=getcwd(NULL, PATH_MAX);
sprintf(cmd, "perl %s/program.pl", cwd);
system(cmd);
free(cwd);
If your perl program itself relies on a specific working directory, then do this instead:
sprintf(cmd, "cd %s && perl program.pl", cwd);
This is probably a silly question, but why are you making an application to launch a perl script? Just add the following to the top of your perl script and use "chmod a+x" to make it executable:
#! /usr/bin/perl
When you use the system command from C and C++, you are basically launching the default system shell and executing the given command in that shell. Doing that is not very portable and somewhat defeats the purpose of using C or C++ (since you could simply create a shell script that does the same thing). If you want to actually do this with C++, you should probably use popen or fork+exec to launch perl. Generally speaking, it isn't nice to end users to play with their Terminal in the manner that you have proposed; most users, by default, have the Terminal configured to display the most recently executed command or their current directory or some other information of their choosing, and changing that is -- on UNIX systems such as Mac OS X and Linux -- considered improper etiquitte. If you are trying to create a terminal interface, though, you might want to look at the curses library.