pipex

📘 Overview

pipex is a C program that recreates the behavior of Unix shell piping, allowing you to redirect input and output between programs using pipes (|). The goal of this project — part of the 42 School curriculum — is to deepen your understanding of key Unix system concepts like file descriptors, process management, pipes, redirection, and command execution. ([GitHub][1])

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📌 Table of Contents

• About
• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Project Structure
• Makefile Rules
• Contributing

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🧠 About

The pipex program aims to simulate the following shell behavior:

< infile cmd1 | cmd2 > outfile

When executed, your program should take an input file, run a command that reads from it, pipe its output into another command, then write the final result to an output file. ([GitHub][1])

For example:

./pipex infile "ls -l" "wc -l" outfile

This should behave like:

< infile ls -l | wc -l > outfile
``` :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}

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## ⭐ Features

- 📌 Simulates shell redirection with input (`<`) and output (`>`)  
- 📌 Handles Unix pipes (`|`) between commands  
- 📌 Uses `fork()`, `execve()`, `dup2()`, `waitpid()`, and `pipe()` system calls  
- 📌 Bonus support for:
  - Multiple commands chained with pipes
  - `here_doc` functionality  
  (if implemented) :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

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## 🚀 Getting Started

### 🧾 Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

- A **C compiler** (like `gcc`)  
- `make` installed  
- A POSIX‑compatible environment (Linux / macOS / WSL)

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## 📦 Installation

1. **Clone the repository:**

   ```bash
   git clone https://github.com/mohos26/pipex.git
   cd pipex

2. Compile the project:

   make

   This will compile the source files into an executable named pipex (depending on your Makefile rules).

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📖 Usage

Basic Usage (Mandatory Part)

./pipex infile "cmd1" "cmd2" outfile

Example:

./pipex input.txt "cat" "wc -l" output.txt

This should output the line count of input.txt into output.txt.

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Bonus Functionality (if implemented)

• Multiple piped commands:

  ./pipex infile "cmd1" "cmd2" "cmd3" outfile

  Similar to:

  < infile cmd1 | cmd2 | cmd3 > outfile

• Here‑document:

  ./pipex here_doc LIMITER "cmd1" "cmd2" outfile

  Simulates:

  cmd1 << LIMITER | cmd2 >> outfile
  ``` :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}

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📂 Project Structure

pipex/
├── includes/             # Header files
├── srcs/                 # Source code
├── srcs_bonus/           # Bonus code (optional)
├── libft/                # Bundled libft (optional)
├── Makefile              # Project rules
├── pipex.h               # Main header
├── pipex_bonus.h         # Bonus header (if any)
├── .gitignore
└── ...

Typical modules include:

• Argument parsing
• Pipe setup
• Process forking
• File redirection
• Command execution and path resolution

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🛠 Makefile Rules

Rule	Description
make	Compile the project
make bonus	Compile with bonus features (if supported)
make clean	Remove object files (*.o)
make fclean	Remove object files and executable
make re	Rebuild all from scratch

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🤝 Contributing

This repository contains your implementation of the Pipex project from the 42 curriculum. If you’d like to add tests, improve documentation, examples, or scripts, feel free to open a pull request.