spawnve()

Spawn a child process, given a vector of arguments and an environment

Synopsis:

#include <process.h>

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

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; this argument can't be NULL. The value in argv[0] can't be NULL, and should represent the filename of the program being loaded. The last member of argv must be a NULL pointer.
envp
NULL, or a pointer to an array of character pointers, each pointing to a string that defines an environment variable. The array is terminated with a NULL pointer. Each pointer points to a character string of the form:
variable=value
  

that's used to define an environment variable.

Library:

libc

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

Description:

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


Note: If the new child process is a shell script, the first line must start with #!, followed by the path of the program to run to interpret the script, optionally followed by one argument. The script must also be marked as executable. For more information, see The first line in the Writing Shell Scripts chapter of the Neutrino User's Guide.

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

If the value of envp is NULL, then the child process inherits the environment of the parent process. The new process can access its environment by using the environ global variable (found in <unistd.h>).

The following arguments are passed to the underlying call (spawn()):

spawnve(mode, path, argv, envp)

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

Returns:

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

mode Return value
P_WAIT The exit status of the child process. For information about macros that extract information from this status, see Status macros in the documentation for wait().
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 or environment list of the new child process is greater than ARG_MAX bytes.
EACCES
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.
ECHILD
The mode is P_WAIT, and the spawned process terminated before the call to waitpid() was completed.
EFAULT
One of the buffers specified in the function call is invalid.
EINTR
The function was interrupted by a signal.
EINVAL
An argument is invalid (e.g. arg0 is NULL, or the value of mode isn't valid).
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 spawnve() 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.
ETXTBSY
The text file that you're trying to execute is busy (e.g. it might be open for writing).

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(), spawnv(), spawnvp(), spawnvpe(), wait(), waitpid()

Processes and Threads chapter of Getting Started with QNX Neutrino