How to use execvp() to execute a command - c

Question

So I'm trying to create a custom shell for my school project. My method was to create child process, and have that process execute the command using the execvp() function that my professor briefly mentioned in class that we are meant to use. Here's my code, as always, any help is appreciated.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#define MAX_LINE 80
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *input = (char*)malloc(MAX_LINE*sizeof(char));
int should_run = 1;
while(should_run){
printf("osh>");
fflush(stdout);
pid_t pid;
pid = fork();
if(pid < 0){
printf("error with creating chiled process");
return 0;
}
if(pid == 0){
fgets(input, MAX_LINE, stdin);
char *token = strtok(input," ");
if(execvp(token[0], token) < 0){
printf("Error in execution.");
return(0);
}
//should_run = 0;
}
waitpid(pid, 1, 0);
}
return 0;
}

Answer 1

The prototype of execvp is
int execvp(const char *file, char *const argv[]);
It expects a pointer to char as the first argument, and a NULL-terminated
pointer to an array of char*. You are passing completely wrong arguments.
You are passing a single char as first argument and a char* as the second.
Use execlp instead:
int execlp(const char *file, const char *arg, ...
/* (char *) NULL */);
So
char *token = strtok(input," \n");
if(token == NULL)
{
fprintf(stderr, "only delimiters in line\n");
exit(1);
}
if(execlp(token, token, NULL) < 0){
fprintf(stderr, "Error in execution: %s\n", strerror(errno));
exit(1);
}
Also the convention in UNIX is to print error messages to stderr and a process with an error should
have an exit status other than 0.

Answer 2

As Pablo's states, you are passing the wrong arguments to execvp().
You can consider coding by yourself a function (char **strsplit(char *str, char delim)) which takes a string and split it into smaller pieces, returning an array of strings.
Also don't ignore compiler's warnings, they tell you a lot of things, and I suggest you to compile with gcc -Wall -Wextra -Werror to get almost any possible error in your program.
I tell you this because waitpid() takes as second argument a pointer to integer, to get an update of the status of the forked program. With this status you how the program exited (normally, segf, bus error...), you can use it to print an error if something went wrong.
You can consider using execv() instead (I know I'm going off topic, but you can learn useful things doing this), and find by yourself the correct executable(s).
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <dirent.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#define MAX_LINE 255
char **strsplit(char *str, char delim);
char *strjoin(char const *s1, char const *s2);
int isexec(char *path)
{
struct stat buf;
lstat(path, &buf);
if (S_ISREG(buf.st_mode) && (S_IXUSR & buf.st_mode))
return (1);
return (0);
}
static char *find_exec_readdir(char *paths, char *cmd)
{
DIR *dir;
struct dirent *dirent;
char *exec;
exec = NULL;
if ((dir = opendir(paths)) != NULL)
{
while ((dirent = readdir(dir)) != NULL)
{
if (!strcmp(dirent->d_name, cmd))
{
exec = strdup(dirent->d_name);
break ;
}
}
if (closedir(dir))
dprintf(2, "Failed closing dir.\n");
}
return (exec);
}
char *find_exec(char *cmd, char **paths)
{
char *exec;
char *path;
char *tmp;
int i;
i = -1;
exec = NULL;
path = NULL;
if ((cmd[0] == '.' || cmd[0] == '/'))
{
if (isexec(cmd))
return (strdup(cmd));
return (NULL);
}
while (paths[++i])
if ((exec = find_exec_readdir(paths[i], cmd)) != NULL)
{
tmp = strjoin(paths[i], "/");
path = strjoin(tmp, exec);
free(tmp);
free(exec);
break ;
}
return (path);
}
int handle_return_status(int status)
{
int sig;
int i;
if (!WIFEXITED(status) && WIFSIGNALED(status))
{
sig = WTERMSIG(status);
i = -1;
while (++i <= 13)
{
if (print_signal_error(sig))
{
return (-1);
}
}
dprintf(2, "Process terminated with unknown signal: %d\n", sig, NULL);
return (-1);
}
return (0);
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *input = NULL;
char **command = NULL;
int should_run = 1;
int status = 0;
(void)argc;
(void)argv;
if ((input = (char*)malloc(MAX_LINE*sizeof(char))) == NULL)
return (dprintf(2, "Failed to malloc, abort.\n"));
while(should_run){
printf("osh> ");
fflush(stdout);
pid_t pid;
pid = fork();
if(pid < 0)
return (dprintf(2, "error with creating chiled process\n"));
if(pid == 0){
fgets(input, MAX_LINE, stdin);
command = strsplit(input, ' ');
command[0] = find_exec(command[0], strsplit(getenv("PATH"), ':'));
if(execv(command[0], &command[1]) < 0)
return (dprintf(2, "Error in execution.\n"));
//should_run = 0;
}
waitpid(pid, &status, 0);
handle_ret_status(status);
}
return 0;
}