Question

so if I do:

dup2(0, backup); // backup stdin
dup2(somefile, 0); // somefile has four lines of content
fgets(...stdin); // consume one line
fgets(....stdin); // consume two lines
dup2(backup, 0); // switch stdin back to keyboard

I am finding at this point.. stdin still contains the two lines I haven’t consumed. Why is that? Because there is just one buffer no matter how many times you redirect? How do I get rid of the two lines left but still remember where I was in the somefile stream when I want to go back to it?

Answer 1

You haven’t flushed the stdin buffer. It has buffered up all the lines of somefile even if the underlying file descriptor is restored.