change terminal directory using c language

Question

i am trying to change the directory of my linux terminal using c language. the thing is i am using threads. i have tried to use chdir() but its not working, n yes chdir() is also a process function. Actually the thing i am trying to implement is, i am trying to make a multi threaded program which compiles Linux kernel, and that is not possible without specifying directories( i have tried to do it without specifying directories but failed :) )

can anybody help me out with this issue?

Thanks in advance :)

Answer 1

You can't! No process can change the working directory of another. A process can only change its own WD. When you launch an external command such like your C program, then a new process is launched. The cd command of your shell is an internal one.

Answer 2

It isn't very clear what you are trying to achieve. It appears that somehow you wish to emulate the behaviour of a script (or the make tool) using a C program, that is to say having the C program you wrote launch new processes (using system or perhaps a combination of fork and exec* ). If that is the case, then what you actually want is to modify the environment variables of these processes for them to find the files they need. A forked process will inherit the environment of its parent, so all you need is to use getenv , putenv , setenv and unsetenv to retrieve and set the environment variables you want to add, update or remove; or you may use the specific execve , execvpe which let you specify exactly what environment should be available to the new program.

references:

• fork system call
• exec family of system calls
• unix environment