[SOLVED]Qt capture stdout

[Jake007]

Hi!

In my current project, I need to get stdout into a custom reader. Everything works as expected in sample project ( no Qt), and in project were program is run directly from Qt Creator.
But as soon as a program is started directly from .exe, custom stream reader fails to bind to stdout, because Qt binds to it.

1. How can I prevent Qt from binding stdout?
2. If I can't, can I bind first so that Qt will fail? Will this crash Qt app?
3. Qt Creator probably starts a program with some parameters to prevent this, so that my reader works. What are those parameters? Note: With qDebug << argc; I get 1, so that means only program executable path. How Qt Creator starts the program?

Note: I cannot solve my problem with QProcess.

Regards,
Jake

[MuldeR]

I don't quite understand your problem yet.

If you "capture" the STDOUT (or STDERR), there must be two processes involved:

• The process that writes something to its STDOUT/STDERR
• The process that tries to capture the STDOUT/STDERR of the other process

And this can be done in (at least) two different ways:

• Create both processes in a way that the STDOUT (or STDERR) of the first process is connected to the STDIN of the second one (e.g. from the Shell, using the "pipe" operator). Then just read from STDIN.
• Let the first process create the second one as its child-process and then let it read from the child process' STDOUT or STDERR handle (typically this is done using QProcess or via Win32 API)

What exactly are you doing? Which of two processes is based on Qt? And which of them is failing?

[Jake007]

Everything is in the same process ( one Qt app).
I need to redirect outputs of a interpreter which is built with a program (necessary, otherwise I do not have enough control over it). It's output is equivalent to printf. I've been doing this with a help of "this":http://stackoverflow.com/a/5419409 class.

Bellow executes return, which means that it cannot bind to STDOUT nor to STDERR:
@if (m_oldStdOut == -1 || m_oldStdErr == -1)
return;@

[master of disaster]

If you want to redirect stdout, this code should work:

@
stdout = freopen("output_file", "w", stdout);
@

You'll need the C header stdio.h.

[Jake007]

This outputs it into a file, but I need it in QString, string or char * variable.

[master of disaster]

Try this:

@
stdout = freopen("output_file", "w", stdout);
...
QFile f;
f.open("output_file", QIODevice::ReadOnly);
QByteArray output = f.readAll();
QString out(output);
@

A bit complicated, but it works (hopefully).

[Jake007]

I'd work. But the problem is, that working with disk and files is a huge performance drop. Imagine you need to read it 10 000 times per second.
If it would do up to 100 times per second, I'd be happy.

[master of disaster]

Well, then you could try some other hacking, but I'm not sure if it will work.

@
fpos_t pos;

fgetpos(stdout, &pos);
@

Now you have the current position of the text cursor (the beginning of the following output). Then you run the program.

Now it's time to get the output. We reset the position to the position where the output starts and then read everything to the end:

@
FILE *f = stdout;
fsetpos(f, &pos);

QFile file(f);
QByteArray output = file.readAll();
@

Some weird code, but it might even work...

[MuldeR]

Don't know if you can do that with Qt only, but with the Win32 API this should work:

@#include <stdio.h>
#include <io.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <Windows.h>

//Create a new pipe
HANDLE hRead;
HANDLE hWrite;
if(!CreatePipe(&hRead, &hWrite, NULL, NULL))
{
fprintf(stderr, "FATAL: CreatePipe failed !!!\n");
_exit(42);
}

//Get C-style FILE* pointers from OS handles
int iReadDescr = _open_osfhandle((intptr_t) hRead, _O_RDONLY|_O_BINARY);
int iWriteDescr = _open_osfhandle((intptr_t) hWrite, _O_WRONLY|_O_BINARY);
FILE *fRead = (iReadDescr >= 0) ? _fdopen(iReadDescr, "rb") : NULL;
FILE *fWrite = (iWriteDescr >= 0) ? _fdopen(iWriteDescr, "wb") : NULL;

//Set stdout and stderr
*stdout = *fWrite;
*stderr = *fWrite;

/* --- the following is for test only --- */

//Create some test output on stdout
printf("Hallo Welt!");
fflush(stdout); //Don't forget to flush or the fread() below will hang forever !!!

//Get output from pipe (use DbgView to display!)
for(;;)
{
char buff[2] = {'\0', '\0'};
int len = fread(buff, sizeof(char), 1, fRead);
if(len > 0) OutputDebugStringA(buff);
}@

Better solution, of course, would be to modify the code of your "interpreter" to NOT using printf(), but using fprintf() instead with a user-defined stream (can be set via some API and may still default to stdout). Or even better: Use a user-defined logging function (can be set via some API and may still default to printf).

[Jake007]

master of disaster
Thanks for your effort. Code is weird indeed, but unfortunately not working. I tried using the following code:

@printf("aaaaaaaaaaaa"); // Also tried moving it after stdout is open with QFile

QFile file;
file.open(stdout, QIODevice::ReadOnly);

QFile result("result.txt");
result.open(QIODevice::WriteOnly | QIODevice::Text);

QTextStream txtStream(&result);
txtStream << file.readAll(); // I get around 200 lines of NUL code in notepad++

result.close();
file.close();@

MuldeR
Thanks. I'll try your code, but if will work, It'll be a temporary solutions, as the program is meant to be cross platform (desktop OSs).
Do you maybe know how Qt Creator starts the app? In worst case, I could start it the same way ( but I assume I might get performance decrease).

I'll also take a look at option of modifying the interpreter and writing user-defined a stream.

[MuldeR]

If it can not be done with Qt entirely, you may need to write platform-specific code for each OS.

...or do it properly and modify the "interpreter" code to set a user-define logging function (should be the best).

Note that I have just update the code that I posted above a bit!

[Jake007]

If I run it from Qt Creator works as it should. That class from stackoverflow works without any problems. So I'm not wiling to give up just yet.

Otherwise I'll have no other option than modifying interpreters source code.

[MuldeR]

And if you don't want your fread() to block until there's new data to read, use a separate thread:

@void reader_func(void *handle)
{
char line[2048];
size_t linepos = 0;

//Read output and process (use DbgView to display!)
for(;;)
{
    //Read next char
    char buff;
    int len = fread(&buff, sizeof(char), 1, *((FILE**)handle));

    //If successfull, append to line buffer
    if(len == 1)
    {
        line[linepos++] = buff;

        //If end of line, do output & reset
        if(buff == '\r' || buff == '\n' || buff == '\b')
        {
            if(linepos > 1)
            {
                line[linepos-1] = '\n';  //Set last char to line-break
                line[linepos++] = '\0';  //Append NULL terminator
                OutputDebugStringA(line);
            }
            linepos = 0;
        }
    }
}

}

int main(...)
{
//Setup stdout/stderr as shown before
/* ... */

//Start reader thread
_beginthread(reader_func, 0, &fRead);

//Create some test output on stdout
printf("Hallo Welt!\n");
fflush(stdout); //Don't forget to flush !!!
Sleep(5000);
printf("Tschüss!\n");
fflush(stdout); //Don't forget to flush !!!
Sleep(1000);

}@

[Jake007]

After further tests, I found out, that stdout already starts closed with a program run as standalone. I did not found a solution (platform independent) to reopen it.

I'll go with a solution of modifying source code of the interpreter -> printf to fprintf as you recommended (done). For opening stream into memory instead into a file I planed to use fmemopen. But after after making a test project of use a fmemopen function ( code from "here":http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/fmemopen.html), I get an error that fmemopen was not declared.
After further searching I did not find any other useful with same functionality. Is there an alternative function or a different way?

[MuldeR]

I don't think fmemopen() is a standard C/C++ function. It's probably not portable!

Well, I already gave you some code that creates a Pipe and gives you C-style FILE* pointers to it.

That code is for Win32 only though. You need to figure out an implementation for Unix/Linux.

But: If you modify the code anyway, why not have your "interpreter" take a logging function as parameter?

You could pass a function pointer to a user-defined function, so you won't even need a stream.

And, as we are on the Qt forums here, why not use Signals & Slots ???

You could give your "interpreter" class a lineLogged(QString &) Signal that will be emitted to log some line.

The "main" program would simply connect to that signal and process the output in a suitable Slot function.

[Jake007]

I figured that out after further searching through the web.
I wanted to stay with streams, because rest of the program is already bound to that chunk of code. Now I'll have to do a few changes ( 10 lines of code is 10 lines of code ;) ).
Interpreter is written in pure C ( not my work, external library), so implementing signals and slots wouldn't be so easy. Replacing all printfs is already pain in the ...
I decided to change print function of the interpreter, so that it will save output to a variable from which I'll later read.

Thanks for all the help!

Marked as solved.

Regards,
Jake

[osirisgothra]

[quote author="Jake007" date="1356631812"]I figured that out after further searching through the web.
I wanted to stay with streams, because rest of the program is already bound to that chunk of code. Now I'll have to do a few changes ( 10 lines of code is 10 lines of code ;) ).
Interpreter is written in pure C ( not my work, external library), so implementing signals and slots wouldn't be so easy. Replacing all printfs is already pain in the ...
I decided to change print function of the interpreter, so that it will save output to a variable from which I'll later read.

Thanks for all the help!

Marked as solved.

Regards,
Jake [/quote]

I just wanted you to know that your work here was not in vain, I have the EXACT same problem, and the posts here have helped solve my problem as well, so thanks. (replacing stream with memory stream, replacing printf with fprintf)

[McLion]

I seem to have the exact same problem as well, posted just "here":http://qt-project.org/forums/viewthread/40286/.
However, I am not quite sure which changes exactly I have to do.
Would you mind recap shortly?
Thanks
McL