Consider this simple C program
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main()
{
if (fork() == 0)
{
execl("script.sh", "script.sh", NULL);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
int status;
wait(&status);
if (WIFEXITED(status) && WEXITSTATUS(status) == EXIT_SUCCESS)
{
return 0;
}
return -1;
}
with script.sh being
#!/bin/bash
case $DEBUG in
true)
echo "Debug mode on"
;;
*)
echo "Debug mode off"
;;
esac
If I compile the C program with gcc -o foo main.c and call it with
DEBUG=true ./foo
then the output is Debug mode on, so the script actually got the environment variables I passed to the program foo, even though I didn't use execle. In which scenario then is it necessary to use execle (other than wanting than wanting to specify the environment variables directly in the source code)? I'm talking about people doing something like
extern char **environ;
...
execle(path, path, NULL, environ)
What's the purpose of that?
When you don't want the environment to get inherited (you want the executable to start with an empty environment or an environment you've specifically set up for it).
Related
I have two files in the same directory.
directory/
| a.c
| b.c
a.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
pid_t pid;
int status;
int wret;
if ((pid = fork()) < 0)
printf("error");
else if(pid == 0)
{
printf("%s", argv[1]);
execv(argv[1], &argv[1]);
}
else
{
/* respawn */
if ((wret = wait(&status)) != -1)
execv(argv[1], &argv[1]);
}
return 0;
}
b.c is just a simple program that print "hello".
I want to run ./a b from the command line to make the a program call exexXX to execute the b program.
I don't understand why if I use execv I can write just ./a b in the command line, instead if I use execvp I have to write ./a ./b.
The man exec page is not clear because it reports
"The initial argument for these functions is the name of a file that
is to be executed."
Thanks
If the program name argument contains no slashes, the execvp() function looks for the program to execute in the directories listed on your PATH environment variable. If you don't have . (the current directory) on your PATH and you aren't in one of the directories listed on your path, a plain name like b will not be executed, even if b is in the current directory. If the name contains a slash, it can be relative (./b) or absolute (/home/someone/src/programs/b) and it will be interpreted as a file name to be executed without consulting the PATH environment variable.
By contrast, execv() treats a plain b in the program name argument as ./b — the name of the file in the current directory and executes it if it is present, and fails if it is located somewhere else.
At one time, there was a comment that asked:
Are you saying if you have an executable b in . and you do execv("b", b_args), it will get executed?
On a normal Unix box, yes.
Code b.c:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(void)
{
puts("Hello");
return 0;
}
Code a.c:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(void)
{
char *argv[] = { "b", 0 };
execv(argv[0], argv);
fprintf(stderr, "failed to execute '%s'\n", argv[0]);
return 1;
}
Running these:
$ (PATH=$(clnpath "$PATH" ".:$PWD"); echopath PATH; ./a)
/Users/jleffler/bin
/opt/informix/12.10.FC6/bin
/Users/jleffler/oss/bin
/Users/jleffler/oss/rcs/bin
/usr/local/mysql/bin
/opt/gcc/v7.3.0/bin
/Users/jleffler/perl/v5.24.0/bin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/opt/gnu/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
Hello
$
The clnpath script modifies the string provided as its first argument ("$PATH") by removing any occurrences of any of the directory names listed in its second path-like argument (".:$PWD") — it's how I edit my PATH on the fly when I need to. The echopath script echoes the directories on PATH (or any other path-like variable, or it will process the result of expanding a pathlike variable, such as "$PATH"), one per line — the output shows that neither . nor /Users/jleffler/soq (which is where I run the program) is on $PATH in the sub-shell. The ./a runs the code from a.c (it would not be executed without that ./ in front), which in turn runs the code from b.c, which produces the Hello. (If there is some system where this does not work, please identify it.)
I could also arrange for b.c to be:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(void)
{
puts("Hello");
const char *env = "PATH";
char *val = getenv(env);
if (val == 0)
val = "<nothing>";
printf("%s=%s\n", env, val);
return 0;
}
which would print the value of $PATH directly from the executable (to verify that neither . nor the value of the current working directory is listed).
I'm currently trying to change the process name of a process so I can read the more easily with htop, top, .... I want to LD_PRELOAD this code into another process so it gets renamed by an environemt variable.
I found a lot of stuff in the internet, but nothing works:
prctl(PR_SET_NAME, "Test");
This does not work because htop is not honoring the name.
Nginx setproctitle (Link) doesn't work as well, because it strips the parameters (which are needed by the process).
I tried everything I found and now I'm out of ideas.
Is this even possible in linux? And how?
Just run your program by shell script or your program through exec and pass desired name as argv[0]:
#/bin/bash
exec -a fancy_name a.out ...
or C/C++:
execl( "./a.out", "fancy_name", ... );
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#define NEW_NAME "hello_world"
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
if(strcmp(argv[0], NEW_NAME)) {
argv[0] = NEW_NAME;
execv("/proc/self/exe", argv);
fputs("exec failed", stderr);
return 1;
}
while(1) // so it goes to the top
;
}
I want to execute a C program in Linux using fork and exec system calls.
I have written a program msg.c and it's working fine. Then I wrote a program msg1.c.
When I do ./a.out msg.c, it's just printing msg.c as output but not executing my program.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h> /* for fork */
#include <sys/types.h> /* for pid_t */
#include <sys/wait.h> /* for wait */
int main(int argc,char** argv)
{
/*Spawn a child to run the program.*/
pid_t pid=fork();
if (pid==0)
{ /* child process */
// static char *argv[]={"echo","Foo is my name.",NULL};
execv("/bin/echo",argv);
exit(127); /* only if execv fails */
}
else
{ /* pid!=0; parent process */
waitpid(pid,0,0); /* wait for child to exit */
}
return 0;
}
argv[0] contains your program's name and you are Echo'ing it.
Works flawlessly ;-)
/bin/echo msg.c will print msg.c as output if you need to execute your msg binary then you need to change your code to execv("path/msg");
your exec executes the program echo which prints out whatever argv's value is;
furthermore you cannot "execute" msg.c if it is a sourcefile, you have to compile (gcc msg.c -o msg) it first, and then call something like exec("msg")
C programs are not executables (unless you use an uncommon C interpreter).
You need to compile them first with a compiler like GCC, so compile your msg.c source file into a msg-prog executable (using -Wall to get all warnings and -g to get debugging info from the gcc compiler) with:
gcc -Wall -g msg.c -o msg-prog
Take care to improve the msg.c till you get no warnings.
Then, you might want to replace your execv in your source code with something more sensible. Read execve(2) and execl(3) and perror(3). Consider using
execl ("./msg-prog", "msg-prog", "Foo is my name", NULL);
perror ("execl failed");
exit (127);
Read Advanced Linux Programming.
NB: You might name your executable just msg instead of msg-prog ....
I was working on my project when I needed to use "curl" to obtain some data from www. Now firstly I tried direct system() function but it didn't worked, strangely everytime it corrupted the whole source code file while compiling with gcc. Luckily I was testing it separately.
Then I tested execl() function, this code compiles OK and gcc gives me a .exe file to run, but nothing happens when I run it,blank windows appears. CODE:
int main(){
execl("curl","curl","http://livechat.rediff.com/sports/score/score.txt",">blahblah.txt",NULL);
getch();
return 0;
}
Includes are not shown properly but I have included stdio,conio,stdlib and unistd.h.
How can I get output of program to store in text file? Also running the above command creates and stores text file in My Documents, I want it to be in local directory from where I run the program. How can I do that?
You need to provide the path of curl, and you cannot use redirection because the application will not be executed through bash. Instead use the -o flag and specify the filename. Also, execl does not return when successful:
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
execl("/usr/bin/curl",
"curl","http://livechat.rediff.com/sports/score/score.txt",
"-oblahblah.txt",NULL
);
printf("error\n");
return 0;
}
If you want your code to return, you should fork a child process to run the command. This way you can check the return code.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#define CURL "/usr/bin/curl"
int main()
{
pid_t pid;
int status;
pid = fork();
if (pid == 0)
{
execl(CURL, CURL, arg1, NULL);
}
else if (pid < 0)
{
printf("Fork failed\n");
exit (1);
}
else
{
if (waitpid(pid, &status, 0) != pid)
status = -1;
}
return status;
}
arg1 is whatever argument you want to use with curl or if you aren't using any than you obviously can omit it.
I'm supposed to create a linux shell using C. Below is my code:
#include <stddef.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#define SHELL "/bin/sh"
#include "extern.h"
int mysystem (char *command)
{
int status;
pid_t pid;
pid = fork ();
if (pid == 0)
{
execl (SHELL, SHELL, "-c", command, NULL);
_exit (EXIT_FAILURE);
}
else if (pid < 0)
status = -1;
else
if (waitpid (pid, &status, 0) != pid)
status = -1;
return status;
}
Everything is right when I test the code using different commands like "ls", "man", etc. but when I use notepad to create a testfile containing the following:
echo "hello"
exit 2
the return code come out to be 512 when it's supposed to be just 2.
Can anyone help me fix my code?
status is not the exit code; it contains other information as well. Normally the return value is in bits 8-15 of status, but you should be using the macros in wait.h to extract the return value from status in a portable way.
Note that 512 is 2<<8.
Make sure you're using the macros like WIFEXITED and WEXITSTATUS on your status value. See your operating system's man page for waitpid. Here is a description of the POSIX requirements on waitpid.
By notepad do you mean you're using a Windows program to create a Unix shell script? That doesn't work because you end up with CRLF at the end of each line instead of LF. Try the "dos2unix" command on the script to convert it to Unix format and then run it.
I assume you're aware that code is already available in the system() library call? Judging by your function name, I'd guess you're just trying to learn how to do it with system calls.
Try enclosing your command string you supply to /bin/sh with quotes, because otherwise the space character makes /bin/sh think you are supplying another option to the shell itself, not to the command you are calling. For example, try this in a terminal:
/bin/sh -c exit 2
echo $?
and
/bin/sh -c "exit 2"
echo $?
The first one gives 0, and the second one gives the desired 2.