[Previous] [Contents] [Next]

spawnp()

Create and execute a new child process, given a relative path

Synopsis:

#include <spawn.h>

pid_t spawnp( const char * file,
              int fd_count, 
              const int fd_map[ ],
              const struct inheritance * inherit, 
              char * const argv[ ],
              char * const envp[ ] );

Library:

libc

Description:

The spawnp() function creates and executes a new child process, named in file. It sets the SPAWN_CHECK_SCRIPT and SPAWN_SEARCH_PATH flags (see below), and calls spawn().

The spawnp() function is a QNX function (based on the POSIX 1003.1d draft standard). The C library also includes several specialized spawn*() functions. Their names consist of spawn followed by several letters:

This suffix: Indicates the function takes these arguments:
e An array of environment variables.
l A NULL-terminated list of arguments to the program.
p A relative path. If the path doesn't contain a slash, the PATH environment variable is searched for the program.
v A vector of arguments to the program.

How the spawn functions are related


Most of the spawn*() functions do a lot of work before a message is sent to procnto.


The file argument is used as the pathname of the executable if it contains a slash; otherwise, the PATH environment variable is searched for file.

If fd_count isn't 0, fd_map must contain at least fd_count file descriptors, up to OPEN_MAX FDs. If fd_count is 0, fd_map is ignored.

If fd_count is 0, all file descriptors (except for the ones created with fcntl()'s FD_CLOEXEC flag) are inherited by the child process.

The structure specified by inherit contains at least these members:

short flags
One or more of the following bits:
pid_t pgroup
The child process's group if SPAWN_SETGROUP is specified in the flags member.

If SPAWN_SETGROUP is set in inherit.flags and inherit.pgroup is set to SPAWN_NEWPGROUP, the child process starts a new process group with the process group ID set to its process ID.

sigset_t sigmask
The child process's signal mask if SPAWN_SETSIGMASK is specified in the flags member.
sigset_t sigdefault
The child process's set of defaulted signals if SPAWN_SETSIGDEF is specified in the flags member.

The child process inherits the following attributes of the parent process:

The child process has several differences from the parent process:

The argv argument is a pointer to an argument vector. The value in argv[0] should point to the filename of program being loaded, but can be NULL if no arguments are being passed. The last member of argv must be a NULL pointer. The value of argv can't be NULL.

The envp argument is a pointer to an array of character pointers, each pointing to a string defining 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. If the value of envp is NULL, then the child process inherits the environment of the parent process.

The child process can access the parent process's environment by using the environ global variable (found in <unistd.h>).

If the file is on a filesystem mounted with the ST_NOSUID flag set, the effective user ID, effective group ID, saved set-user ID and saved set-group ID are unchanged for the child process. Otherwise, if the set-user ID mode bit is set, the effective user ID of the child process is set to the owner ID of file. Similarly, if the set-group ID mode bit is set, the effective group ID of the child process is set to the group ID of file. The real user ID, real group ID and supplementary group IDs of the child process remain the same as those of the parent process. The effective user ID and effective group ID of the child process are saved as the saved set-user ID and the saved set-group ID used by the setuid().


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

Returns:

The process ID of the child process, or -1 if an error occurs (errno is set).

Errors:

E2BIG
The number of bytes used by the argument list and environment list of the new child process is greater than ARG_MAX bytes.
EACCESS
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 or file's filesystem was mounted with the ST_NOEXEC flag.
EAGAIN
Insufficient resources available to create the child process.
EBADF
An entry in fd_map refers to an invalid file descriptor.
EFAULT
One of the buffers specified in the function call is invalid.
ELOOP
Too many levels of symbolic links or prefixes.
EMFILE
Insufficient resources available to remap file descriptors in the child process.
ENAMETOOLONG
The length of file 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 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 spawnp() 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.

Classification:

QNX 6

Safety:
Cancellation point No
Interrupt handler No
Signal handler No
Thread Yes

See also:

execl(), execle(), execlp(), execlpe(), execv(), execve(), execvp(), execvpe(), getenv(), putenv(), setenv(), sigaddset(), sigdelset(), sigemptyset(), sigfillset(), spawn(), spawnl(), spawnle(), spawnlp(), spawnlpe(), spawnv(), spawnve(), spawnvp(), spawnvpe(), wait(), waitpid()


[Previous] [Contents] [Next]