C++ pipes between multiple children - c++

Question

I am working on a project and I got it mostly figured out except for one minor(big) problem. I can't seem to figure out how to create pipes between any number of children.
for example I am taking in command line arguments to determine how many children will be produced. The first child doesn't have input but has output and the last child outputs to STD output. I need to pass values into the first child and into each child after that in order. Here is what i got:
#include <errno.h>
#include <cstdio>
#include <iostream>
#include <sys/wait.h>
using namespace std;
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
pid_t childpid;
int x2ypipe[2];
pipe(x2ypipe);
if(x2ypipe==0) {
cout<<"ERROR:"<<errno<<endl;
}
int y2zpipe[2];
pipe(y2zpipe);
if(y2zpipe==0) {
cout<<"ERROR:"<<errno<<endl;
}
pid_t xchild =fork();
if(xchild==0) {
dup2(x2ypipe[1],STDOUT_FILENO);
close(x2ypipe[0]);
close(x2ypipe[1]);
int a=execl(argv[1],argv[1], (char*)NULL);
if(a==-1) {
perror("The following error occurred at A");
}
}
for(int i=2; i<(argc-1); i++) {
childpid =fork();
if(childpid==0) {
dup2(x2ypipe[0],STDIN_FILENO);
close(x2ypipe[0]);
close(x2ypipe[1]);
//direct y2z pipe to standard output and replace the child with the program part2
dup2(x2ypipe[1],y2zpipe[1]);
dup2(y2zpipe[1],STDOUT_FILENO);
close(y2zpipe[0]);
close(y2zpipe[1]);
int b=execl(argv[i],argv[i],(char *)NULL);
if(b==-1) {
perror("The following error occurred at B");
}
}
}
pid_t zchild =fork();
if(zchild==0) {
dup2(y2zpipe[0],STDIN_FILENO);
close(y2zpipe[0]);
close(y2zpipe[1]);
int c=execl(argv[argc-1],argv[argc-1],(char *)NULL);
if(c==-1) {
perror("The following error occurred at C");
}
}
close(x2ypipe[0]);
close(x2ypipe[1]);
wait(NULL);
wait(NULL);
wait(NULL);
}
now right now I am only passing in three programs in to the argv[] and it works fine. I will have to add a if statement in my for loop to check for the last/highest possible value of i to connect the y2z pipe to the zchild. What I am having trouble doing it connecting the children to each other within the for loop. How would I go about creating a new pipe for each child from the last child?

Answer 1

Maybe this will help. Notice how I call pipe() inside my for loop, so I don't have to think of new "x2y", "y2z", "z2omega", etc, etc names for the pipe pairs.
Also notice how I used a variable prevfd from outside the for loop to carry the previous iterations's pipe file descriptor into the next iteration. And how it points to "/dev/null" to start with.
Finally, notice how I call wait() precisely as many times as I need to, in a loop, rather than writing it 3 (or 4 or 5 or ... 1,397) times.
#include <unistd.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <cstdio>
#include <sys/wait.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
int prevfd;
prevfd = open("/dev/null", O_RDONLY);
if(prevfd < 0) {
perror("/dev/null");
exit(1);
}
for(int i = 1; i < argc; ++i) {
int pipefd[2];
int kid;
if(i != argc-1 && pipe(pipefd)) {
perror("pipe");
break;
}
if(!fork()) {
dup2(prevfd, 0);
close(prevfd);
if(i != argc-1) {
dup2(pipefd[1], 1);
close(pipefd[0]);
close(pipefd[1]);
}
execl(argv[i], argv[i], (char*)0);
perror(argv[i]);
exit(1);
}
close(prevfd);
prevfd = pipefd[0];
close(pipefd[1]);
}
while(wait((int*)0) != -1)
;
return 0;
}

Answer 2

You need a separate pipe between each pair of connected processes.