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From: finn@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Andy Behrens)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Interfacing C Code to Shell Script
Message-ID: <22413@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 31 May 90 00:59:26 GMT
References: <23487@adm.BRL.MIL>
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Reply-To: andyb@coat.com
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rose@baby.swmed.utexas.edu (Rose Oguz) writes:
> 	I want to call a shell script from my C program.  However, I 
> would like the script to return values to my C program.  Is there a
> way to do this?  Or must I write the shell output to a file and read the
> contents of the file in my C code?  

If you need to return a lot of information, then popen(3) is just the
thing (as another poster has suggested).

However, sometimes you only need to return a small integer, perhaps a
success/failure code.  If that's the case, it's easier to call system(3),
and use the shell command

	exit N

to return your status.