Crossplatform lightweight wrapper for pipe/popen

Question

I don't want to create another bicycle and searched lightweight (not boost, poco, ace or another library) crossplatform (win/lin) wrapper under pipe/popen for C++. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Maybe something like

#ifndef _WIN32
inline int _pipe(int fildes[2], unsigned psize, int textmode) {
   return pipe(fildes);
}
inline FILE* _popen(const char* command, const char* type) {
   return popen(command, type);
}
inline void _pclose(FILE* file) { 
   pclose(file); 
}
#endif

MSDN says _popen, _pclose and _pipe are provided in the CRT. So we just forward the underscored functions to the real POSIX functions outside of Windows (you could do the reverse, but notice that _pipe takes 2 extra arguments which are meaningful in Windows).

                      ___________
                     /           \ 
                    |  Warning !  |
                     \___________/
                           |
 -------- __@      __@     | __@       __@      __~@
 ----- _`\<,_    _`\<,_    _`\<,_     _`\<,_    _`\<,_
 ---- (*)/ (*)  (*)/ (*)  (*)/ (*)  (*)/ (*)  (*)/ (*)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. These functions should only be used in console programs. It won't work in Windows GUI program. See the note in the MSDN page of _popen for more info, and see also What is the equivalent to Posix popen() in the Win32 API?.

2. You do know that popen executes a command in shell right? The syntax between a UNIX shell and the Windows command prompt is vastly different, and these can't be tackled with some cross-platform implementation of pope/pclose.

3. There might be some subtle difference between the Windows functions and the real POSIX functions not handled with these simple wrappers.

4. You can't use them in WinRT.

_{(The bicycles are copied from http://www.chris.com/ascii/index.php?art=transportation%2Fbicycles.)}