Chapter 27: Program 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 Program Execution
27.1 Executing a New Program: execve()
27.2 The exec() Library Functions
        27.2.1 The PATH Environment Variable
        27.2.2 Specifying Program Arguments As a List
        27.2.3 Passing the Caller's Environment to the New Program
        27.2.4 Executing a File Referred to by a Descriptor: fexecve()
27.3 Interpreter Scripts
27.4 File Descriptors and exec()
27.5 Signals and exec()
27.6 Executing a Shell Command: system()
27.7 Implementing system()
27.8 Summary
27.9 Exercises