system

Calls the host environment's command processor with the parameter command . Returns an implementation-defined value (usually the value that the invoked program returns).

If command is a null pointer, checks if the host environment has a command processor and returns a nonzero value if and only if the command processor exists.

Parameters

Return value

Implementation-defined value. If command is a null pointer, returns a nonzero value if and only if the command processor exists.

Notes

On POSIX systems, the return value can be decomposed using WEXITSTATUS and WSTOPSIG .

The related POSIX function popen makes the output generated by command available to the caller.

Example

In this example there is a system call of the unix command date +%A and a system call to (possibly installed) gcc compiler with command-line argument ( --version ):

#include <stdlib.h>
 
int main(void) {
    system("date +%A");
    system("gcc --version");
}

Wednesday
gcc (GCC) 11.2.0
...

References

See also