Getting screen return from system()?

when using system() is there a way I can capture the result of it? (ex: the actual error/output on the screen)

Or is there a better way to execute shell commands? In most cases if I can I use built in functions to accomplish the task that I'm using system() for, but in some cases I have to use system(). My program is to administer a Linux server so it does stuff like create/edit/delete users, etc.

One way I'm thinking is I can pipe it to a temp file then read the file, but that's kinda messy, I'm wondering if there's a better way.

why not do it directly without commands

Use popen() :
http://linux.die.net/man/3/popen

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Originally Posted by cj-wijtmans

why not do it directly without commands

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Not everything is possible to do directly in C++ (that I know of), such as creating/editing shell users, restarting services, running a command like rsync, etc.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by j0nas

Use popen() :
http://linux.die.net/man/3/popen

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I'll check that out. I'm guessing the FILE is a file stream I can read that represents the output? Is this correct?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Red Squirrel

I'll check that out. I'm guessing the FILE is a file stream I can read that represents the output? Is this correct?

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Yes, I think so. Take a look at the opengroup documentation here and the sample example that reads the output from the 'ls' command - opengroup - popen().