How to export registry key in C++ - c++

I need help for export a registry key in C++.
cmd = " reg.exe export \"HKLM\\software\\Far manager\" \"C:\Users\\user\\Desktop\\test.reg\" ";
// printf("cmd = %s\n", cmd);
system(cmd);
The code does not work, because a name "Far manager" contains a space and show me "ERROR: The system was unable to find the specified registry key or value."
But if I use the name without a space, for example "Mozilla" the program works great.
I am trying to use "Far%20%manager" and Far%backspace%manager, but it does not work too.
But if I write command in cmd (reg.exe export "HKLM\software\Far manager" "%userprofile%\\Desktop\\test.reg") it works great.

If you have any special characters or spaces in your call to system(), you must wrap the entire command in an extra set of double quotes (i.e. \"). For your example:
cmd = "\"reg.exe export \"HKLM\\software\\Far manager\" \"C:\\Users\\user\\Desktop\\test.reg\"\"";
system(cmd);
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Related

Config File using Environment Variables

I have a .cfg file and I'd like to use an environment variable to configure one of the fields.
directory=${HOME}/folder1/
However, when I parse this config, it's reading ${HOME} as a string, which is obviously not what I want.
I wrote my own parser in C++, in case I need to do something special. Right now it is a very basic read and parse.
void Config_Parser::parse_config_by_delimiter(string config, string delimiter) {
ifstream infile(config);
while (infile >> line) {
key = line.substr(0, line.find(delimiter));
value = line.substr(line.find(delimiter)+1);
if (this->config_settings.find(key) != this->config_settings.end()) {
cout << "Cannot use config... same key is set multiple times" << endl;
}
this->config_settings.insert({key, value});
}
}
The code seems to work fine for all other config settings (anything not using an environment variable), so I don't think its a problem with the code. But, I am a C++ noobie, so it's here anyways.
When I parse and print out the value:
Actual output: ${HOME}/folder1/
Expected/desired output: /home/my_dir/folder1/
Untested
You can use wordexp to do posix shell-like expansion of strings.
The function wordexp() performs a shell-like expansion of the string
s and returns the result in the structure pointed to by p.
You will need to #include <wordexp.h>
You also probably want to specify the flag WRDE_NOCMD to prevent subshell command execution.
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/wordexp.3.html
Is the following configuration syntax acceptable to you?
directory = getenv("HOME") + "/folder1/";
If so, then a configuration file parser library I wrote called Config4* can do what you want. You can find it on http://www.config4star.org.
I recommend you scroll down the web page to "Download the Manuals" and retrieve Config4* Getting Started Guide and Config4* C++ API Guide. Chapters 2 (overview of syntax) and 3 (overview of API) of the "Getting Started" guide should be more than sufficient to get you up and running.

how to pass on some output from a c++ program to the shell so that it can be used in the shell

Is there any good way i can make some data created by my c++ program available to the shell after exiting the program?
I have a c++ program, inside which i have a string containing a path:
std::string path = "/home/some/path"
I want this path to be available after the c++ program exits main and i am returned to the shell, so that i can use that path (e.g. cd to that path).
I have considered/tried the following approaches:
I tried making an environment variable in c++ program using setenv(). However the environment variable only exists while in the c++ program, and it is apparently not possible to make those changes visible in the shell after exiting the program.
(considered) writing the path to a temporary file, so that a bash script could later access the details of the path from it. However i have read many suggestions to not do that due to security vulnerabilities.
I tried calling the bash script from within the c++ program, using system(). This does not work if i try to cd to that directory (exiting the program will keep me in the same directory as before).
I figure that if i am desperate, i could have my program cout the path, and use the solutions as described here:
$ ./program | tee output.txt
Then the path is stored inside the file. This works technically, but has the undesirable effect of creating a file and printing the path to the screen, and is basically creating a temporary file.
another option to, again, cout in my program, and use command substitution. running in the shell
$ var=$(./program)
storing the path in var. This didnt work because my program does many things including requiring user input before calling
std::cout<< path << std::endl;.
Particularly, i have observed this approach to not display a curses window, which is required for the program.
the only solution that has worked is piping the output to tee.
Environment variables are only an input, they cannot be used to return any information from a program.
You are already using std::cin and std::cout for user input, and std::cerr should be reserved for error messages. However, you can have the shell open more filedescriptors, and have your program write to those. However, doing this with pure C++ is not possible. But if you don't mind using POSIX C functions:
#include <cstdio>
int main() {
FILE *f = fdopen(3, "w");
fprintf(f, "some path\n");
}
And then use it like so:
./program 3> output.txt
This of course creates an undesirable file. I don't think there is any way to store the output from an extra filedescriptor directly to a variable in bash. However, you could create a temporary file inside /dev/shm, so it will never be written to disk, or create a FIFO object and redirect the output from the program to the FIFO, and then read it back. For some examples of how to do this, see this question.
You could write the output that you want the user to see to stderr instead of stdout. Only output what you need your shell script to see to stdout:
#include <iostream>
int main() {
std::clog << "Enter data: "; // clog prints to stderr like cerr
std::string line;
std::getline(std::cin, line);
std::cout << line << '\n';
}
Then this will work:
var=$(./program)

System() function, and calling internet explorer from it, DevC++

I tried making a program that'd take website info, then feed it to system() to start website. I'm aware that characters like (\, ",') don't get fed to the output directly, so I used escape sequences.
I wrote this program, but the command prompt just refuses to go past C:\ path. But if I copy paste the command displayed by my program, internet explorer gets launched. But the case isn't so for my program. Can anybody tell me where is the error?
Here is my code:
#include<iostream>
#include<cstdlib>
using namespace std;
int main()
{
cout<<"Please enter the website you wish to visit: ";
string website,web;
cin>>web;
web= " " + web;
website = "\"%ProgramFiles%\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore\""+web;
cout<<"\n"<<website<<endl<<endl<<endl;
system(website.c_str());
return 0;
}
You are using an environment variable, %ProgramFiles%, in your system command-line; these are specific to the MS-DOS prompt environment, and generally not available in system implementations.
I suggest replacing that with the full path, such as \"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore\", and see if that works.
If that works, then your implementation doesn't implicitly replace environment variables the way a full Command Prompt does, so you will need to query the environment variable separately and construct the path before you run system. See getenv for one possible way (I'm not sure what mingw32 supports, so you may have other options as well).
If that doesn't remedy the problem, I suggest checking if you can launch something simpler, like notepad.exe, to verify that there is nothing interfering with launching an application in general, such as your environment path or permissions.
Pass it in double double quotes:
website = "\"\"%ProgramFiles%\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore\"\""+web;
The system("something") call actually runs the command interpreter cmd in a way similar (but probably not identical) to cmd /c something. This has implications when there are spaces in the command name, see e.g this. I cannot tell exactly why single double quotes work when there's no environment variable involved, and do not work otherwise, but the fact is, double double quotes do work.
If you want to launch the user's preferred browser, consider calling
system("start http://" + websitename);
instead.
Get that environment variable value first.
#include <iostream>
#include <ShlObj.h>
int main() {
char pathToPf[MAX_PATH];
if (S_OK == SHGetFolderPathA(NULL, CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES, NULL, 0, pathToPf))
std::cout << pathToPf << std::endl;
return 0;
}
See SHGetFolderPath documentation...
Note that I was lazy and using the ASCII version of this function. Use it without the A postfix and deal with the conversation ;)

Problems passing source command to bash from c++ application

I am developing an application for work that allows the users to quickly set environment variables on a terminal basis. By setting the path in each terminal we ensure files with the same name in different directories aren't causing application testing to be problematic. I am Using Qt to build the program which is c++ based and all the datatypes are foundationally the same.
I am using the following code to invoke commands in the terminal from which the application launches from using system(). I can run commands into the bash just fine with code; however, I run into a problem when I attempt to use a command with arguments. This is probably why source doesn't seem to work right as the source command is followed by the filename. It would appear that I drop the argument appended after the bash command.
My Code:
void assignTerminalToPath(QString path)
{
QString data = "";
QString currentUsersHomeDirectory = QDir::homePath();
QString tmpScriptLocation = currentUsersHomeDirectory;
QByteArray ba;
tmpScriptLocation += "/.tmpSourceFile";
QFile tmpSourceFile(tmpScriptLocation);
if(tmpSourceFile.open(QFile::WriteOnly | QFile::Truncate))
{
QTextStream output(&tmpSourceFile);
data.append("export PATH=.:");
data.append(path);
data.append(":$PATH");
output << QString("#!/bin/bash\n");
output << data;
tmpSourceFile.close();
}
data.clear();
data.append("/bin/bash -c source ");
data.append(tmpScriptLocation);
ba = data.toLatin1();
const char *cStr = ba.data();
system(cStr);
}
Perhaps I'm not referencing bash correctly and I need something outside of -c?
Reference Execute shell/bash command using C/C++
Thanks for any help in advance!
source is not a program that you can call, it is embedded bash command. It is designed to be processed by bash without invoking another copy of bash, such that environment variables can be changed in current bash copy.
However, you cannot call source as part of system(). And even if you did succeed at that, its effects to change environment variables would be completely lost for caller app once system() has returned.
Try a command to envelop with parameters in double quotes ("command - arg1 - to arg2") to transfer in the function system().
used:
char *com = "\"command -arg1 -arg2\"";
system(com);

Using getenv function in Linux

I have this following simple program:
int main()
{
char* v = getenv("TEST_VAR");
cout << "v = " << (v==NULL ? "NULL" : v) << endl;
return 0;
}
These lines are added to .bashrc file:
TEST_VAR="2"
export TEST_VAR
Now, when I run this program from the terminal window (Ubuntu 10.04), it prints v = 2. If I run the program by another way: using launcher or from Eclipse, it prints NULL. I think this is because TEST_VAR is defined only inside bash shell. How can I create persistent Linux environment variable, which is accessible in any case?
On my system (Fedora 13) you can make system wide environment variables by adding them under /etc/profile.d/.
So for example if you add this to a file in /etc/profile.d/my_system_wide.sh
SYSTEM_WIDE="system wide"
export SYSTEM_WIDE
and then open a another terminal it should source it regardless of who the user is opening the terminal
echo $SYSTEM_WIDE
system_wide
Add that to .bash_profile (found in your home directory). You will need to log out and log back in for it to take effect.
Also, since you are using bash, you can combine the export and set in a single statement:
export TEST_VAR="2"
Sorry if I'm being naive but isn't .bash_profile useful only if you are running bash as your default shell ?
I 'sometimes' use Linux and mostly use ksh. I have .profile so may be you should check for .*profile and export the variable there.
Good luck :)
There is no such thing as a system-wide environment variable on Linux. Every process has its own environment. Now by default, every process inherits its environment from its parent, so you can get something like a system-wide environment by ensuring that a var is set in an ancestor of every process of interest. Then, as long as no other process changes that var, every process of interest will have it set.
The other answers here give various methods of setting variables early. For example, .bash_profile sets it in every login process a user runs, which is the ultimate parent of every process they run after login.
/etc/profile is read by every bash login by every user.