Run process from C++ and kill it after some time

[monk.pt]

Hello,

Is there any way i can run a process in c/c++ and then kill it if it exceeds the time of x seconds ? X may be an integer or not.

[brunson]

You would have to fork/exec the process and save the child process id, then set a signal handler for SIGCHILD, the parent program would then sleep for x seconds and if it hasn't received the signal before the time expires, kill() the child process using it's PID.

[monk.pt]

Well, how can i add a signal handler, and how can i send a signal to the process ? If the process dies by any signal, i have to return "Process killed by signal x", but how can i do this ?

[brunson]

That is basic system programming. I've given you all the keywords you need, start googling.

[stevea]

I'll suggest a simpler approach. The way to signal your process after some period of time is to use the "alarm" or setitimer" syscall. See "man 2 alarm", "man 2 setitimer". You will receive a SIGALRM signal, for example (but read the man page). No fork or other process is needed. If you need to print a msg or something, then just set up ia signal handler before you call setitimer.

void
mysigalarm(int sig)
{
printf("Got SIGALRM !!!\n");
exit(42);
}

...
main()
{
...
signal(SIGALRM, (sighandler_t) mysigalrm);
...
setitimer(ITIMER_REAL, ...);
...
}

[brunson]

Oh, I misread the original post. I thought he wanted to spawn an external process from the C++ program.