Spawn a child process, given a vector of arguments and a relative path
Synopsis:
#include <process.h>
int spawnvp( int mode,
const char * file,
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:
- P_WAIT — load the child program into available
memory, execute it, and make the parent program resume execution after
the child process ends.
- P_NOWAIT — execute the parent program
concurrently with the new child process.
- P_NOWAITO — execute the parent program
concurrently with the new child process.
You can't use
wait()
to obtain the exit code.
- P_OVERLAY — replace the parent program with
the child program in memory and execute the child.
No return is made to the parent program.
This is equivalent to calling the appropriate exec*()
function.
- file
- The name of the executable file.
If this argument contains a slash, it's used as the pathname of the
executable; otherwise, the function searches for file in the
directories listed in the PATH environment variable.
- 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.
Library:
libc
Use the -l c option to
qcc
to link against this library.
This library is usually included automatically.
Description:
The spawnvp() function creates and executes a new child process,
named in file with the NULL-terminated list of arguments
in the argv vector. This function
calls spawnvpe().
Note:
- In order to create a child process, your process must have the
PROCMGR_AID_SPAWN ability enabled.
For more information, see
procmgr_ability().
-
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 spawnvp() function isn't a POSIX 1003.1 function,
and isn't guaranteed to behave the same on all operating systems.
It calls spawnvpe() before calling spawnp().
For greater portability, use
posix_spawn().
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 spawnvp() 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 cannot 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.
- 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 file and its path exceeds PATH_MAX or a
pathname component is longer than NAME_MAX.
- ENOENT
- The file identified by the file argument is empty,
or one or more components of the pathname of the new process don't exist.
- ENOEXEC
- The child process 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 spawnvp() function isn't implemented for the filesystem specified in file.
- ENOTDIR
- A component of the path prefix of the child process isn't a directory.
- EPERM
- The calling process doesn't have the required permission (see
procmgr_ability()),
or an underlying call to
mmap()
failed because it attempted to set PROT_EXEC for a region of memory covered by
an untrusted memory-mapped file.
- 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.