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Caution: This version of this document is no longer maintained. For the latest documentation, see http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs.

spawnv()

Spawn a child process, given a vector of arguments

Synopsis:

#include <process.h>

int spawnv( int mode, 
            const char * path, 
            char * const argv[] );

Arguments:

mode
How you want to load the child process, and how you want the parent program to behave after the child program is initiated:
path
The full path name of the executable.
argv
A pointer to an argument vector. The value in argv[0] should represent the filename of the program that you're loading. The last member of argv must be a NULL pointer. The value of argv can't be NULL, and argv[0] can't be a NULL pointer, even if you're not passing any argument strings.

Library:

libc

Use the -l c option to qcc to link against this library. This library is usually included automatically.

Description:

The spawnv() function creates and executes a new child process, named in path with the NULL-terminated list of arguments in the argv vector. This function calls spawnvpe().


Note: If the new child process is a shell script, the first line must start with #!, followed by the path and arguments of the shell to be run to interpret the script. The script must also be marked as executable.

The spawnv() function isn't a POSIX 1003.1 function, and isn't guaranteed to behave the same on all operating systems. It calls spawnve() before calling spawn().

To view the documentation for a function, click its name in this diagram:

spawn spawnve spawnl spawnv spawnle spawnp spawnvpe spawnlpe spawnvp spawnlp

How the spawn functions are related


Most of the spawn*() functions do a lot of work before a message is sent to procnto.


The child process inherits the parent's environment. The environment is the collection of environment variables whose values that have been defined with the export shell command, the env utility, or by the successful execution of the putenv() or setenv() function. A program may read these values with the getenv() function.


Note: A parent/child relationship doesn't imply that the child process dies when the parent process dies.

Returns:

The spawnv() function's return value depends on the mode argument:

mode Return value
P_WAIT The exit status of the child process.
P_NOWAIT The process ID of the child process. To get the exit status for a P_NOWAIT process, you must use the waitpid() function, giving it this process ID.
P_NOWAITO The process ID of the child process, or 0 if the process is being started on a remote node. You can't get the exit status of a P_NOWAITO process.

If an error occurs, -1 is returned (errno is set).

Errors:

E2BIG
The number of bytes used by the argument list of the new child process is greater than ARG_MAX bytes.
EACCESS
Search permission is denied for a directory listed in the path prefix of the new child process or the new child process's file doesn't have the execute bit set.
EAGAIN
Insufficient resources available to create the child process.
EBADF
An error occurred duplicating open file descriptors to the new process.
EFAULT
One of the buffers specified in the function call is invalid.
ELOOP
Too many levels of symbolic links or prefixes.
EMFILE
Insufficient resources available to load the new executable image or to remap file descriptors in the child process.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of path exceeds PATH_MAX or a pathname component is longer than NAME_MAX.
ENOENT
The file identified by the path argument is empty, or one or more components of the pathname of the child process don't exist.
ENOEXEC
The child process's file has the correct permissions, but isn't in the correct format for an executable.
ENOMEM
Insufficient memory available to create the child process.
ENOSYS
The spawnv() function isn't implemented for the filesystem specified in path.
ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix of the child process isn't a directory.

Examples:

Run myprog as if a user had typed:

myprog ARG1 ARG2

at the command-line:

#include <stddef.h>
#include <process.h>

char *arg_list[] = { "myprog", "ARG1", "ARG2", NULL };
...
spawnv( P_WAIT, "myprog", arg_list );

The program is found if myprog is in the current working directory.

Classification:

QNX 4

Safety:
Cancellation point Read the Caveats
Interrupt handler No
Signal handler No
Thread Yes

Caveats:

If mode is P_WAIT, this function is a cancellation point.

See also:

execl(), execle(), execlp(), execlpe(), execv(), execve(), execvp(), execvpe(), getenv(), putenv(), setenv(), spawn(), spawnl(), spawnle(), spawnlp(), spawnlpe(), spawnp(), spawnve(), spawnvp(), spawnvpe(), wait(), waitpid()


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