How to execute a shell script from C in Linux?

Question

How can I execute a shell script from C in Linux?

Answer 1

I prefer fork + execlp for "more fine-grade" control as doron mentioned. Example code shown below.

Store you command in a char array parameters, and malloc space for the result.

int fd[2];
pipe(fd);
if ( (childpid = fork() ) == -1){
   fprintf(stderr, "FORK failed");
   return 1;
} else if( childpid == 0) {
   close(1);
   dup2(fd[1], 1);
   close(fd[0]);
   execlp("/bin/sh","/bin/sh","-c",parameters,NULL);
}
wait(NULL);
read(fd[0], result, RESULT_SIZE);
printf("%s\n",result);