Suppress system("ping") output in C++ - c++

Question

I have written a simple program that pings three sites and then reacts to whether they are reachable or not.
My question is: can I suppress system("ping ")'s output? I have written my code in C++ as I know that language the best. Currently the code opens the ping.exe running the system command. If I can prevent the output from showing up while it still pings that would be ideal.
I am eventually going to turn this program in a windows service that is why I would like to suppress both the command line console window as well as suppress the ping output. Thanks.

Answer 1

Try doing system("ping host > nul") (nul is windows equivalent of UNIX /dev/null).

Answer 2

Generally, if you're going to call another program but don't want it to act like std::system, you're going to need a platform-specific function like fork()/exec() on UNIX or CreateProcess() on Windows. These functions give you control over how the other program runs, for instance, that it not show output or not create a console window, etc.

Answer 3

You can use system command like below to suppress the output of ping command.
system("ping 100.100.100.100 > response.dat");
Above command pings IP address 100.100.100.100 and directs the output to a file called response.dat. In response.dat you can see the response of ping command.

Answer 4

Do system( "ping site.com >nul 2>nul" ); and check the value the shell returns.
if the ping succeeds, the shell will return 0, else it will return 1.
I would be more detailed, but Vis Studio is reinstalling itself. :)
There's also a way to hide the console window using the Win API to exec the command, but...
I do not remember the details.
Edit:
I'm still waiting for the MSVS install process, so... :)
Use CreateProcess with the DETACHED_PROCESS flag for the dwCreationFlags parameter to hide the console window.
After you call create process, you'll have to use WaitForSingleObject on the process handle to wait for the ping to complete. The last parameter to CreateProcess should have a pointer to process information that contains the process handle. (Assuming CreateProcess was successful) You have to wait for the command to complete. Once it's complete, you can use the process handle to get the return value, though I'm too time contstrained to tell you how to do that at this point.

Answer 5

When you get over to Windows and call CreateProcess(), be sure to set:
lpStartupInfo->wShowWindow = SW_HIDE;
This will ensure that any windows created by the new process are hidden.
Using the DETACHED_PROCESS flag will prevent the new process from inheriting your application's console, but that does not prevent the new process from creating a new console. Not sure what ping would do, but best to remove all doubt by using SW_HIDE.

Answer 6

You could also use this way, this will return the output in a file and doesn't show up a console windows and freezes the main application which is really usefull.
At first you need to include the Windows header using;
#include <Windows.h>
then send a ping command and write the output into a file like this;
WinExec("ping google.com > file.dat", SW_HIDE);
This will send a ping command to google.com and writes the output to the file 'file.dat' in the directory of your current running program. So you could change file.dat to any file or filepath you want and of course you could change the ping command. The > character means that the output of the command needs to be wrote in the file path behind it.
If you want to show the console window and freeze the application while running the ping command you need to use the following line of code instead of the WindExec() code;
system("ping google.com > file.dat");