Win32 ReadFile hangs when reading from pipe

Question

I am creating a child process, and reading its output. My code works fine when the child process creates output (cmd /c echo Hello World), however ReadFile will hang if process does not create output (cmd /c echo Hello World > output.txt). I am only reading after the process has terminated.

Am I doing something horribly wrong? Is there anyway to do this with synchronous mode, or do I have to use asynchronous mode? All of this is happening in a seperate thread, so I dont think asynchronous mode would offer any benefit to me, unless it is the only way to get this to work. Thanks a lot!

saAttr.nLength = sizeof(SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES); 
saAttr.bInheritHandle = TRUE; 
saAttr.lpSecurityDescriptor = NULL; 

CreatePipe(&g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd, &g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr, &saAttr, 0);
SetHandleInformation(g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd, HANDLE_FLAG_INHERIT, 0);

memset(&piProcInfo, 0, sizeof(PROCESS_INFORMATION));
memset(&siStartInfo, 0, sizeof(STARTUPINFO));
siStartInfo.cb = sizeof(STARTUPINFO); 
siStartInfo.hStdError = g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr;
siStartInfo.hStdOutput = g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr;
siStartInfo.dwFlags |= STARTF_USESTDHANDLES;
CreateProcess(NULL, commandWideString, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, &siStartInfo, &piProcInfo);

while(1)
{
    GetExitCodeProcess(piProcInfo.hProcess, &processExitCode);
    if(processExitCode != STILL_ACTIVE)
        break;
    else
        Sleep(1);
}

*output = (char *)calloc(32, sizeof(char));
processOutputSize = 0;
while(1)
{
    bSuccess = ReadFile( g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd, processOutputTemp, 32, &dwRead, NULL);
    if(!bSuccess || !dwRead)
        break;
    memcpy(*output + processOutputSize, processOutputTemp, dwRead);
    processOutputSize += dwRead;
    if(dwRead == 32)
        *output = (char *)realloc(*output, processOutputSize + 32);
    else
    {
        memset(*output + processOutputSize, 0, 1);
        break;
    }
}
CloseHandle(piProcInfo.hProcess);
CloseHandle(piProcInfo.hThread);
CloseHandle(g_hChildStd_OUT_Rd);
CloseHandle(g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr);

Answer 1

You should close the write end of the output pipe before you read from it, as @Marcus suggested in the comment.

CloseHandle(g_hChildStd_OUT_Wr);

For me this is the real answer.