I'm having issues in mixing freopen of stdin together with ncurses library.
What I do is to reopen the stdin to a file, parse it through flex+bison, then I should revert it back and start ncurses.
Code for the swap is the following:
void switchStdin(const char *newStream) {
fflush(stdin);
fgetpos(stdin, &pos);
fd = dup(fileno(stdin));
freopen(newStream, "r", stdin);
}
void revertStdin() {
fflush(stdin);
dup2(fd, fileno(stdin));
close(fd);
clearerr(stdin);
fsetpos(stdin, &pos);
}
In my lexer this is what I do:
void parse() {
Utils::switchStdin("./filename.ext");
yyparse();
Utils::revertStdin();
}
and in the main file I just do something like
parse();
initscr();
keypad(stdscr, TRUE);
noecho();
cbreak();
...
Now, if I don't comment the revertStdin it just halts when launching, if instead I comment it, parsing does work but the ncurses gui is unresponsive and blinks from time to time.
Since both parts do work when independently used I guess there is some caveat in mixing them in a sequential manner that I'm missing. Does anyone have a clue?
There's more than one problem, but the important one is that revertStdin does not succeed in opening a stream:
switchStdin unnecessarily calls the non-portable fflush(stdin).
it saves the file descriptor for stdin in fd, and the file-position in pos.
the file position isn't needed (since terminals don't do that)
revertStdin unnecessarily calls the non-portable fflush(stdin).
it attempts to overwrite the file descriptor of stdin using the saved fd. That won't work.
on some systems you cannot assign a new value to stdin; it happens that the GNU C library allows this. If you're using Linux, you could solve the problem using fdopen, e.g.,
stdin = fdopen(fd, "r");
if not (more portably) you would use newterm rather than initscr. Unlike initscr, newterm lets you specify the streams for input and output. In that case, you would still use fdopen, but not attempt to assign to stdin. Use your own variable and pass that to newterm.
Related
I mean to associate a file descriptor with a file pointer and use that for writing.
I put together program io.cc below:
int main() {
ssize_t nbytes;
const int fd = 3;
char c[100] = "Testing\n";
nbytes = write(fd, (void *) c, strlen(c)); // Line #1
FILE * fp = fdopen(fd, "a");
fprintf(fp, "Writing to file descriptor %d\n", fd);
cout << "Testing alternate writing to stdout and to another fd" << endl;
fprintf(fp, "Writing again to file descriptor %d\n", fd);
close(fd); // Line #2
return 0;
}
I can alternately comment lines 1 and/or 2, compile/run
./io 3> io_redirect.txt
and check the contents of io_redirect.txt.
Whenever line 1 is not commented, it produces in io_redirect.txt the expected line Testing\n.
If line 2 is commented, I get the expected lines
Writing to file descriptor 3
Writing again to file descriptor 3
in io_redirect.txt.
But if it is not commented, those lines do not show up in io_redirect.txt.
Why is that?
What is the correct way of using fdopen?
NOTE.
This seems to be the right approach for a (partial) answer to Smart-write to arbitrary file descriptor from C/C++
I say "partial" since I would be able to use C-style fprintf.
I still would like to also use C++-style stream<<.
EDIT:
I was forgetting about fclose(fp).
That "closes" part of the question.
Why is that?
The opened stream ("stream" is an opened FILE*) is block buffered, so nothing gets written to the destination before the file is flushed. Exiting from an application closes all open streams, which flushes the stream.
Because you close the underlying file descriptor before flushing the stream, the behavior of your program is undefined. I would really recommend you to read posix 2.5.1 Interaction of File Descriptors and Standard I/O Streams (which is written in a horrible language, nonetheless), from which:
... if two or more handles are used, and any one of them is a stream, the application shall ensure that their actions are coordinated as described below. If this is not done, the result is undefined.
...
For the first handle, the first applicable condition below applies. ...
...
If it is a stream which is open for writing or appending (but not also open for reading), the application shall either perform an fflush(), or the stream shall be closed.
A "handle" is a file descriptor or a stream. An "active handle" is the last handle that you did something with.
The fp stream is the active handle that is open for appending to file descriptor 3. Because fp is an active handle and is not flushed and you switch the active handle to fd with close(fd), the behavior of your program is undefined.
What is my guess and most probably happens is that your C standard library implementation calls fflush(fp) after main returns, because fd is closed, some internal write(3, ...) call returns an error and nothing is written to the output.
What is the correct way of using fdopen?
The usage you presented is the correct way of using fdopen.
Consider we have some_function and it prints result to stdout instead returning it.Changing it's defination is out of our scope and there's no alternative to it. We're left with option of reading it from stdout. So the question.
How to read stdout of C++ program in itself.
It is possible to get pid I searched if we can get fd of the same programm but I'm not able to find anything.
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <iostream>
void some_function(){
std::cout<<"Hello World";
}
int main(){
int pid = ::getpid();
string s = //What to write here.
cout<<"Printing";
some_function(); //This function prints "Hello World" to screen
cout<<s; //"PrintingHello World"
return 0;
}
How to attach pipe to same process i.e instead of creating child process.
Some might think of creating child process and call some_function in it, to be able to read its stdout in parent process, but No, some_function depends on process which calls it and hence we want to call it the very process instead of creating child process.
This isn't hard to do, but IMO it's quite a hack, and it won't work with a multithreaded program:
// make a temp file to store the function's stdout
int newStdOut = mkstemp( "/tmp/stdout.XXXXXXX" );
// save the original stdout
int tmpStdOut = dup( STDOUT_FILENO );
// clear stdout
fflush( stdout );
// now point the stdout file descriptor to the file
dup2( newStdOut, STDOUT_FILENO );
// call the function we want to collect the stdout from
some_function();
// make sure stdout is empty
fflush( stdout );
// restore original stdout
dup2( tmpStdOut, STDOUT_FILENO );
// the tmp file now contains whatever some_function() wrote to stdout
Error checking, proper headers, syncing C stdout with C++ cout, and reading from and cleaning up the temp file are left as exercises... ;-)
Note that you can't safely use a pipe - the function can write enough to fill up the pipe, and you can't read from the pipe because you've called the function.
How to read stdout of C++ program in itself?
There are very few reasons to do that and that is usually (but not always) a design bug.
Be aware of an important thing (at least in a single-threaded program). If your program is both reading from its "stdout" and writing (as usual) in it, it could be stuck in a deadlock: unable to read so not reaching any output routine, (or unable to write because the pipe is full).
So a program which both reads and writes the same thing (actually, the two sides of the same pipe(7)) should use some multiplexing call like poll(2). See also this.
Once you understand that, you'll have some event loop. And before that, you'll make a pipe(7) using pipe(2) (and dup2(2)).
However, pipe to self is a good thing in some signal(7) handling (see signal-safety(7)). That trick is even recommended in Qt Unix signal handling.
Read more about Unix system programming, e.g. ALP or some newer book. Read also intro(2) & syscalls(2).
I have looked for pipe and it requires fd
Wrong. Read much more carefully pipe(2); on success it fills an array of two file descriptors. Of course it could fail (see errno(3) & perror(3) & strerror(3))
Maybe you just need popen(3). Or std::ostringstream. Or open_memstream(3).
Consider we have some_function and it prints result to stdout instead returning it. Changing it's definition is out of our scope and there's no alternative to it
If some_function is your code, or is some free software, you could and probably should improve it to give a result somewhere....
This question already has answers here:
How to redirect the output back to the screen after freopen("out.txt", "a", stdout)
(6 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
After freopen-ing stdout, How can I print on terminal?
freopen("out", "w", stdout); // reopen stdout
/* something */
printf("Now I want to print this on terminal");
I believe this is what you are looking for:
Once I've used freopen, how can I get the original stdout (or stdin) back?
There's no portable solution. But the link also explains a possible solution using your own stream and a non-portable solution that'll work on most posix systems.
There isn't a good way. If you need to switch back, the best solution
is not to have used freopen in the first place. Try using your own
explicit output (or input) stream variable, which you can reassign at
will, while leaving the original stdout (or stdin) undisturbed. For
example, declare a global
FILE *ofp;
and replace all calls to printf( ... ) with fprintf(ofp, ... ).
(Obviously, you'll have to check for calls to putchar and puts, too.)
Then you can set ofp to stdout or to anything else.
You might wonder if you could skip freopen entirely, and do something
like
FILE *savestdout = stdout;
stdout = fopen(file, "w"); /* WRONG */
leaving yourself able to restore stdout later by doing
stdout = savestdout; /* WRONG */
but code like this is not likely to work, because stdout (and stdin
and stderr) are typically constants which cannot be reassigned (which
is why freopen exists in the first place).
It may be possible, in a nonportable way, to save away information
about a stream before calling freopen to open some file in its place,
such that the original stream can later be restored. The most
straightforward and reliable way is to manipulate the underlying file
descriptors using a system-specific call such as dup or dup2, if
available. Another is to copy or inspect the contents of the FILE
structure, but this is exceedingly nonportable and unreliable.
Under some systems, you might be able to reopen a special device file
(such as /dev/fd/1 under modern versions of Unix) which is still
attached to (for example) the original standard output. You can, under
some systems, explicitly re-open the controlling terminal, but this
isn't necessarily what you want, since the original input or output
(i.e. what stdin or stdout had been before you called freopen) could
have been redirected from the command line.
You can do it by:
#include <fstream>
ofstream out("out.txt");
out<<"something";
then
cout<<"something";
How do I passively listen to stderr and obtain it as string for sending to callback? I have seen posts on reading stderr but I want to listen to it rather than actively reading it.
Background:
I have a cross-platform piece that uses 3rd party library (libcurl) which will output verbose info into stderr. This cross-platform piece is to be used by more than 1 non-cross-platform applications.
I would like to log these info, which I can do by providing FILE* to libcurl. But instead of doing that, I want to see if I can capture (passively listen to) the output in stderr as string, and send back to the calling main application via callback. This has the benefit of 1. main app can keep a single log using whatever logging tool it wants. 2. it will keep this piece cross-platform.
Doing this in a single process is a little tricky, but you can probably do it.
1: Using freopen() you can redirect your stderr to a named file. You can simultaneously open that file for reading on another handle. You might also need to call setvbuf() on stderr to turn off buffering on output to stderr so that you will be able to read it right away from the 2nd handle. Since it is being written to a file you can read it at anytime - when it is convenient. The unix function "select" is what you need if you want to be notified when the file changes. (see also fileno()).
2: More tricky would be to setup stderr as the write end of a pipe. Should be doable using dup3(), though this isn't exactly cross-platform (to non-unixy OS's). It would also require that a 2nd thread be reading from the pipe to prevent the writer from being blocked if they write very much.
Like:
FILE *stream = freopen("stderr.out", "w", stderr); // Added missing pointer
setvbuf(stream, 0, _IONBF, 0); // No Buffering
FILE *input = fopen("stderr.out", "r");
fprintf(stderr, "Output to stderr dude\n");
//fflush(stderr); // You can explicitly flush instead of setting no buffering.
char buffer[1024];
while (fgets(buffer, 512, input))
{
printf(">>>%s\n", buffer);
}
all, I am designing a Key-Value server, and when I wrote the client, and I found a really strange thing,see the simplified code:
while(1)
{
printf("->:");
read(STDIN_FILENO, buf, sizeof(buf));
write(client_sock, buf, sizeof(buf));
int m = read(client_sock, buf, sizeof(buf));
buf[m] = '\0';
printf("%s", buf);
}
when I run the program, it first ask for input, so I input something, but nothing happen!
(the server runs well, and it well echo something, when I use other client)
then I change the code only one line:
printf("\n->:");
then it runs well! why? why "\n" can change the output? I guess it maybe the read() , but I can't explain it
printf(3) is part of the C standard IO library, which performs internal buffering to provide performance improvements.
There are three types of buffering: none, line, and block.
Which buffering is applied is determined in part by whether the descriptor being written to is 2 or not, and if it is connected to a terminal. (See isatty(3).)
If the printing is done to stderr (2) then no buffering is done.
If the printing is done to any other descriptor, then the behavior changes if it is a terminal or not: if output is a terminal, then the output is line buffered. If the output is not a terminal (file, pipe, socket, etc.) then the output is block buffered.
When line buffered, it waits for the \n before printing anything. (Or if you write enough to overflow the internal buffers before sending a \n.)
What I'd recommend instead is the following:
printf("->:");
fflush(stdout);
read(STDIN_FILENO, buf, sizeof(buf));
/* ... */
printf("%s\n", buf);
It's a small change; you won't get a pointless empty line at program start, and the prompt should show up .. promptly.
You can use the setvbuf(3) function to change the buffering for your stream once, at start up, and never need to flush it again, if you would rather.
int err = setvbuf(stdout, NULL, _IONBF, 0);
/* check err */
Standard output is line-buffered by default. If you don't write a complete line, the output will be held in the buffer until you do. You can use fflush to flush the stream or setbuf to change the buffering mode.