Open TTY to use with execlp and dup - c++

Question

I am trying to create a minimal code to use pipe/fork/execlp.
So far so good, I am using execlp with bash -c, so if I do.
echo asd |./a.out cat
> asd
So it is working as expected.
But if I try to use anything that needs a TTY, it does not work.
Like ./a.out vim, I get "Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal"
And the vim that was open does not works as expected.
I tried to find on the internet an example on how to open a TTY, the only one that I found was:
http://www.danlj.org/lad/src/minopen.c
My Code, so far is:
#include <iostream>
#include <cstdio>
#include <string.h>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
typedef struct pCon{
int fout[2];
int fin[2];
int fd[2];
int pid1, pid2;
} connectionManager;
std::string command = "";
/*
* Implementation
*/
void childFork(connectionManager *cm);
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int size;
if(argc < 2) exit(1);
else command = argv[1];
connectionManager *cm = new connectionManager;
pipe(cm->fd);
if((cm->pid1 = fork()) == -1)exit(1);
if (cm->pid1 == 0)
{
const unsigned int RCVBUFSIZE = 2000;
char echoString[RCVBUFSIZE];
while((size = read(fileno(stdin),echoString,RCVBUFSIZE)) > 0)
write(cm->fd[1], echoString, size);
close(cm->fd[1]);
}
else
childFork(cm);
return 0;
}
void childFork(connectionManager *cm){
char *buffer = new char[2000];
int size;
close(cm->fd[1]);
dup2(cm->fd[0], 0);
close(cm->fd[0]);
pipe(cm->fout);
if((cm->pid2 = fork()) == -1)exit(1);
if (cm->pid2 == 0)
{
close(cm->fout[0]);
int returnCode = execlp("bash", "bash", "-c", command.c_str(), NULL);
if(returnCode!=0)
std::cerr << "Error starting the bash program" << std::endl;
}
else
{
close(cm->fout[1]);
while((size = read(cm->fout[0], buffer, 2000 )) > 0 )
write(fileno(stdout), buffer, size);
}
}
I tried to keep the minimal necessary code to make it work.
Is there any way to implement TTY on this code, I know that does not seems to be such trivial task.
Can someone help me with that?
I also tried to open the tty and dup it, but no luck so far.

Answer 1

Try to use pseudo terminal. You can use opentty. For your purpose you can use forkpty which combines pty with fork. I've created a small example for you. About the same as your program, just it works. I've kept it simple, so I don't handle the terminal control characters.
#include <pty.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <termios.h>
#include <sys/select.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
if (argc<1) return 1;
int master;
pid_t pid = forkpty(&master, NULL, NULL, NULL); // opentty + login_tty + fork
if (pid < 0) {
return 1; // fork with pseudo terminal failed
}
else if (pid == 0) { // child
char *args[] = { argv[1], argv[2], NULL }; // prg + 1 argument
execvp(argv[1], args); // run the program given in first param
}
else { // parent
struct termios tios;
tcgetattr(master, &tios);
tios.c_lflag &= ~(ECHO | ECHONL);
tcsetattr(master, TCSAFLUSH, &tios);
while(1) {
fd_set read_fd, write_fd, err_fd;
FD_ZERO(&read_fd);
FD_ZERO(&write_fd);
FD_ZERO(&err_fd);
FD_SET(master, &read_fd);
FD_SET(STDIN_FILENO, &read_fd);
select(master+1, &read_fd, &write_fd, &err_fd, NULL);
if (FD_ISSET(master, &read_fd))
{
char ch;
int c;
if (c=read(master, &ch, 1) != -1) // read from program
write(STDOUT_FILENO, &ch, c); // write to tty
else
break; // exit when end of communication channel with program
}
if (FD_ISSET(STDIN_FILENO, &read_fd))
{
char ch;
int c=read(STDIN_FILENO, &ch, 1); // read from tty
write(master, &ch, c); // write to program
}
}
}
return 0;
}
For compiling use -lutil .
While running a new tty device appears in /dev/pts .
vim accepts it as a terminal.