how to limit execttion time of a function

[soumyaxyz]

I am trying to run a compiled c program from my program

float execute(char filename[]){
	float run_time
	char str[40];
	strcpy(str,".// ");
	strcat(str,filename);
	strcat(str," <in.txt> out.txt");  
	//str = ./ xyz(say) <in.txt> out.txt
	system(str);
.
.
	return run_time;
}

i want to ensure that the function terminates within 5 seconds no matter what.
but i have no idea how to ensure that
can somebody help??

[hanst99]

You could run it in a separate thread, and outside of the thread check the time the function already ran.

[soumyaxyz]

i don't know how to run threads in c

can you give me some relevant links?

[hanst99]

Google. There's a bunch of threading API's out there, though most of them are very similar to each other.