The Linux Programming Interface

27PROGRAM EXECUTION

This chapter follows from our discussion of process creation and termination in the previous chapters. We now look at how a process can use the execve() system call to replace the program that it is running by a completely new program. We then show how to implement the system() function, which allows its caller to execute an arbitrary shell command.

27.1 Executing a New Program: execve()

The execve() system call loads a new program into a process’s memory. During this operation, the old program is discarded, and the process’s stack, data, and heap are replaced by those of the new program. After executing various C library run-time startup code and program initialization code (e.g., C++ static constructors or C functions declared ...