Changing working directories in Linux shell in a C program

Question

My goal is to write a C program that is like a basic shell for Linux. I have everything working except changing working directories. I have tried the system() f

Answer 1

Your chdir call is failing with -1 return value.

Please try to print the errno like this:

errno = 0;
chdir(token);
if ( errno != 0 ) {
    printf( "Error changing dir: %s\n", strerror( errno ) );
}

Keith is correct: \n at the end is killing you.

You can do following to get rid of it:

char *ptr = cmdStr;
<snip>
    else if( strncmp("cd", cmdStr, 2) == 0 )
    {
            strsep(&ptr, " ");       /* skip "cd"   */
            char *chr = strsep(&ptr, "\n");   /* skip "\n"  */
            errno = 0;
            chdir(chr);
            if ( errno != 0 )
               printf( "Error changing dir: %s\n", strerror( errno ) );
    }
</snip>

Answer 2

fgets() leaves the trailing '\n' character in cmdstr.

If you type cd foo, you'll call chdir("foo\n") rather than chdir("foo").