How can I run an external program from C and parse its output?

Question

I\'ve got a utility that outputs a list of files required by a game. How can I run that utility within a C program and grab its output so I can act on it within the same pr

Answer 1

For simple problems in Unix-ish environments try popen().

From the man page:

The popen() function opens a process by creating a pipe, forking and invoking the shell.

If you use the read mode this is exactly what you asked for. I don't know if it is implemented in Windows.

For more complicated problems you want to look up inter-process communication.