Question

Is there a relatively easy way to display the output of a C++ program on a webpage? And I don’t mean manually, in other words, you see it on a webpage as it runs not as in I make a code tag and write it in myself.

EDIT: Just so everybody can get this clear I am going to post this up here. I am NOT trying to make a webpage in C++. Please excuse me if this sounds spiteful or anything but I am getting a lot of answers relating to that.

Answer 1

Step one, get yourself a server-side language. Be that PHP, ASP, Python, Ruby, whatever. Get it set up so you can serve it.

Step two, find your language’s exec equivalent. Practically all of them have them. It’ll let you run a command as if it were from the command line, usually with arguments and capture the output. Here’s PHP’s:

http://php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php

Of course, if you’re passing user-input as arguments, sanitise!

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I’ve just seen that you accepted Scott’s answer. I usually wouldn’t chase up a SO thread so persistently but I fear you’re about to make a mistake that you’ll come to regret down the line. Giving direct access to your program and its own built-in server is a terrible idea for two reasons:

1. You waste a day implementing this built-in server and then getting it to persist and testing it

2. More importantly, you’ve just opened up another attack vector into your server. When it comes to security, keep it simple.

You’re far better having your C++ app running behind another (mature) server side language as all the work is done for you and it can filter the input to keep things safe.