Execute a Linux command in the c program

Question

I am trying to execute a Linux command in c program using system system call, but the don't want it to dump the output or error logs on the terminal. What should I do? Is there any other way to do this?

Answer 1

As the system() call uses a shell to execute the command, you can redirect stdout and stderr to /dev/null, e.g.

system("ls -lh >/dev/null 2>&1"); 

Answer 2

popen is another way in which you can do the same:

void get_popen() {
    FILE *pf;
    char command[20];
    char data[512];

    // Execute a process listing
    sprintf(command, "ps aux wwwf"); 

    // Setup our pipe for reading and execute our command.
    pf = popen(command,"r"); 

    // Error handling

    // Get the data from the process execution
    fgets(data, 512 , pf);

    // the data is now in 'data'

    if (pclose(pf) != 0)
        fprintf(stderr," Error: Failed to close command stream \n");

    return;
}