Name
exec
Synopsis
exec command
Terminates the currently running Perl script and
executes the program named in command.
The Perl program does not resume after the exec unless the exec cannot be run and produces an
error. Unlike system, the
executed command is not forked off into
a child process. An exec
completely replaces the script in its current process.
command may be a scalar
containing a string with the name of the program to run and any
arguments. This string is checked for shell metacharacters, and if
there are any, passes the string to /bin/sh/ -c for parsing. Otherwise, the
string is read as a program command, bypassing any shell
processing. The first word of the string is used as the program
name, with any remaining words used as arguments.
command may also be a list value
in which the first element is parsed as the program name and
remaining elements as arguments. For example:
exec 'echo', 'Your arguments are: ', @ARGV;
The exec function is not
implemented for Perl on Win32 platforms.