winapi

broken pipe in win32 (WinAPI)


I have followed the example here for reading from a pipe, but ReadFile fails and GetLastError() shows me that the pipe is broken.
I have created and used (successfully) a pipe earlier in the program, but I closed all the handles and used entirely new variables for the new pipe just to be sure.
Any ideas why this doesn't work?

HANDLE g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd2 = NULL;
HANDLE g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2 = NULL;
SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES saAttr2; 
STARTUPINFO si2;
PROCESS_INFORMATION pi2;

ZeroMemory( &si2, sizeof(si2) );
si2.cb = sizeof(si2);
ZeroMemory( &pi2, sizeof(pi2) );
//create pipe
saAttr2.nLength = sizeof(SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES); 
saAttr2.bInheritHandle = TRUE; 
saAttr2.lpSecurityDescriptor = NULL; 
CreatePipe(&g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd2, &g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2, &saAttr2, 0);
//create child process
bSuccess = FALSE;
memset(szCmdLine, 0, MAX_PATH);
sprintf(szCmdLine, "ffmpeg.exe -i output.mp3");
ZeroMemory( &pi2, sizeof(PROCESS_INFORMATION) );
ZeroMemory( &si2, sizeof(STARTUPINFO) );
si2.cb = sizeof(STARTUPINFO); 
si2.hStdOutput = g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2;
si2.dwFlags |= STARTF_USESTDHANDLES;
CreateProcess(NULL, szCmdLine, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, &si2, &pi2);
//read from pipe
CloseHandle(g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2);
memset(chBuf, 0, BUFSIZE);
for (;;) 
{ 
  bSuccess = ReadFile( g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd2, chBuf, BUFSIZE, &dwRead, NULL);
  [bSuccess is 0 and GetLastError() returns error 109]
  ........

Solution

  • "Broken pipe" is a normal error when the other end closes the pipe. In your case, this either means there is no "other end", or the other application hasn't written anything to its stdout. I've modified your code to be a compilable test case – there are two cases in which ReadFile fails without having read any data for me:

    Code:

    #define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
    #include <Windows.h>
    #include <assert.h>
    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <string.h>
    
    #define BUFSIZE 200
    
    int main(void)
    {
        BOOL bSuccess;
        char szCmdLine[MAX_PATH];
        char chBuf[BUFSIZE];
        DWORD dwRead;
        HANDLE g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd2 = NULL;
        HANDLE g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2 = NULL;
        SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES saAttr2; 
        STARTUPINFO si2;
        PROCESS_INFORMATION pi2;
    
        ZeroMemory( &si2, sizeof(si2) );
        si2.cb = sizeof(si2);
        ZeroMemory( &pi2, sizeof(pi2) );
        //create pipe
        saAttr2.nLength = sizeof(SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES); 
        saAttr2.bInheritHandle = TRUE; 
        saAttr2.lpSecurityDescriptor = NULL; 
        assert(CreatePipe(&g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd2, &g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2, &saAttr2, 0));
        //create child process
        bSuccess = FALSE;
        memset(szCmdLine, 0, MAX_PATH);
        sprintf(szCmdLine, "cmd /c echo output && echo error>&2");
        ZeroMemory( &pi2, sizeof(PROCESS_INFORMATION) );
        ZeroMemory( &si2, sizeof(STARTUPINFO) );
        si2.cb = sizeof(STARTUPINFO); 
        si2.hStdOutput = g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2;
        si2.hStdError = g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2; // also add the pipe as stderr!
        si2.dwFlags |= STARTF_USESTDHANDLES;
        assert(CreateProcess(NULL, szCmdLine, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, &si2, &pi2));
        //read from pipe
        CloseHandle(g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr2);
        memset(chBuf, 0, BUFSIZE);
        for (;;) 
        { 
            bSuccess = ReadFile( g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd2, chBuf, BUFSIZE, &dwRead, NULL);
            printf("%d %lu 0x%08lx\n", bSuccess, dwRead, GetLastError());
            if (bSuccess)
                printf("\t'%*s'\n", (int)dwRead, chBuf);
            else
                break;
        }
        return 0;
    }