POPEN
Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2017-09-15
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NAME
popen, pclose - pipe stream to or from a process
SYNOPSIS
#include <stdio.h>
FILE *popen(const char *command, const char *type);
int pclose(FILE *stream);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
feature_test_macros(7)):
popen(),
pclose():
-
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 2
|| /* Glibc versions <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
The
popen()
function opens a process by creating a pipe, forking, and invoking the
shell.
Since a pipe is by definition unidirectional, the
type
argument may specify only reading or writing, not both; the resulting
stream is correspondingly read-only or write-only.
The
command
argument is a pointer to a null-terminated string containing a shell
command line.
This command is passed to
/bin/sh
using the
-c
flag; interpretation, if any, is performed by the shell.
The
type
argument is a pointer to a null-terminated string which must contain
either the letter aqraq for reading or the letter aqwaq for writing.
Since glibc 2.9,
this argument can additionally include the letter aqeaq,
which causes the close-on-exec flag
(FD_CLOEXEC)
to be set on the underlying file descriptor;
see the description of the
O_CLOEXEC
flag in
open(2)
for reasons why this may be useful.
The return value from
popen()
is a normal standard I/O stream in all respects save that it must be closed
with
pclose()
rather than
fclose(3).
Writing to such a stream writes to the standard input of the command; the
command's standard output is the same as that of the process that called
popen(),
unless this is altered by the command itself.
Conversely, reading from
the stream reads the command's standard output, and the command's
standard input is the same as that of the process that called
popen().
Note that output
popen()
streams are block buffered by default.
The
pclose()
function waits for the associated process to terminate and returns the exit
status of the command as returned by
wait4(2).
RETURN VALUE
popen():
on success, returns a pointer to an open stream that
can be used to read or write to the pipe;
if the
fork(2)
or
pipe(2)
calls fail, or if the function cannot allocate memory,
NULL is returned.
pclose():
on success, returns the exit status of the command; if
wait4(2)
returns an error, or some other error is detected,
-1 is returned.
Both functions set
errno
to an appropriate value in the case of an error.
ERRORS
The
popen()
function does not set
errno
if memory allocation fails.
If the underlying
fork(2)
or
pipe(2)
fails,
errno
is set appropriately.
If the
type
argument is invalid, and this condition is detected,
errno
is set to
EINVAL.
If
pclose()
cannot obtain the child status,
errno
is set to
ECHILD.
ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
attributes(7).
| Interface | Attribute | Value
|
|
popen(),
pclose()
| Thread safety | MT-Safe
|
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008.
The aqeaq value for
type
is a Linux extension.
BUGS
Since the standard input of a command opened for reading shares its seek
offset with the process that called
popen(),
if the original process has done a buffered read, the command's input
position may not be as expected.
Similarly, the output from a command
opened for writing may become intermingled with that of the original
process.
The latter can be avoided by calling
fflush(3)
before
popen().
Failure to execute the shell is indistinguishable from the shell's failure
to execute command, or an immediate exit of the command.
The only hint is an exit status of 127.
SEE ALSO
sh(1),
fork(2),
pipe(2),
wait4(2),
fclose(3),
fflush(3),
fopen(3),
stdio(3),
system(3)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 4.13 of the Linux
man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
information about reporting bugs,
and the latest version of this page,
can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- RETURN VALUE
-
- ERRORS
-
- ATTRIBUTES
-
- CONFORMING TO
-
- BUGS
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- COLOPHON
-
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- Running on 
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