Read linux kernel version using C?

Question

I am using Ubuntu and I want to read the version of its kernel. I found a file named version in /proc/ that records the version of the current kernel.

If I dont want

Answer 1

This should do:

system("uname -r");

EDIT: type man uname in a terminal to get the list of options you can use with uname

Answer 2

Look at this article for the shell based way of getting kernel information. You can suitably run all of this using the system() call. But I am assuming that wouldn't be enough in your case. You'd need someway to parse the shell output. Hence make use of popen() call.

Answer 3

You can use the uname() system call.

Answer 4

Check the uname function. It gives you a lot of information without the need to parse output of some linux executables.

Answer 5

Or you can read /proc/version, but this is not as good as calling uname(2) directly. uname(2) is more natural to C.

Answer 6

You might want to try using the uname function.