Question

I need my program go to some specific directory then run

system( ... ); there and get me back where I was before. How can I do it?

Answer 1

Just do the cd in your system call:

system("cd wherever; command");

The whole string gets passed to sh(1), so you can do any normal shell things in there. Since it’s in a subshell, the working directory of your program won’t be changed.