C/C++ redirect stdout

This is a sample about how to redirect and restore STDOUT on unix platform.

Sometimes, we may need to redirect STDOUT to a file, and restore back later.

This sample program is verified on Linux

The source program:

$ cat t.c

#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

int mOldStdout = -1;
int mNewStdout = -1;

void dupOutput(char * filename)
{
    mNewStdout = open(filename, O_CREAT|O_WRONLY|O_APPEND|O_SYNC, S_IRWXU|S_IRWXG|S_IROTH);

    mOldStdout = dup(STDOUT_FILENO);

    fsync(STDOUT_FILENO);
    dup2(mNewStdout, STDOUT_FILENO);
}

void restoreOutput()
{

    fsync(STDOUT_FILENO);

    dup2(mOldStdout, STDOUT_FILENO);
    close(mOldStdout);

    close(mNewStdout);
}

int main(int argc, char * argv[]) {
    printf("IN STDOUT-1\n");

    dupOutput("logfile");
    printf("IN LOGFILE-1\n");

    restoreOutput();
    printf("IN STDOUT-2\n");
}

Compile and execute the program

$ rm -f logfile

$ gcc t.c

$ ./a.out

IN STDOUT-1

IN STDOUT-3

$ cat logfile

IN LOGFILE-2