June 2002
Beginner
759 pages
80h 42m
English
system
system list
Executes any program on the system for you. It does
exactly the same thing as exec
list except that it does a fork first, and then, after the exec, it waits for the execed program to complete. That is, it
runs the program for you and returns when it’s done, unlike
exec, which never returns (if
it succeeds). Note that argument processing varies depending on
the number of arguments, as described for exec. The return value is the exit
status of the program as returned by the wait(2) call. To get the actual exit
value, divide by 256. (The lower eight bits are set if the process
died from a signal.) See exec .