system man page on HP-UX

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system(3S)							    system(3S)

NAME
       system() - issue a shell command

SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
       executes	 the  command  specified  by the string pointed to by command.
       The environment of the executed command is as if a child	 process  were
       created	using  (see  fork(2)),	and  the child process invoked the sh-
       posix(1) utility via a call to (see exec(2)) as follows:

       ignores the and signals, and blocks the signal, while waiting  for  the
       command	to  terminate.	 If this might cause the application to miss a
       signal that would have killed it, the application  should  examine  the
       return value from and take whatever action is appropriate to the appli‐
       cation if the command terminated due to receipt of a signal.

       does not affect the termination status of any child of the calling pro‐
       cesses other than the process or processes it itself creates.

       does not return until the child process has terminated.

APPLICATION USAGE
       If  the return value of is not −1, its value can be decoded through the
       use of the macros described in For convenience, these macros  are  also
       provided in

       Note  that, while must ignore and and block while waiting for the child
       to terminate, the handling of signals in the  executed  command	is  as
       specified  by  fork(2) and exec(2).  For example, if is being caught or
       is set to when is called, the child is started with handling set to

       Ignoring and in the parent process prevents coordination problems (such
       as two processes reading from the same terminal) when the executed com‐
       mand ignores or catches one of the signals.

RETURN VALUE
       If command is null, returns non-zero.

       If command is not null, returns the termination status of  the  command
       language	 interpreter in the format specified by wait(2).  The termina‐
       tion status of the command language interpreter is as specified for sh-
       posix(1),  except  that	if  some  error	 prevents the command language
       interpreter from executing after the  child  process  is	 created,  the
       return  value from is as if the command language interpreter had termi‐
       nated using If a child process cannot be created, or if the termination
       status for the command language interpreter cannot be obtained, returns
       −1 and sets to indicate the error.

DIAGNOSTICS
       forks to create a child process which, in turn,	in  order  to  execute
       string.	 If  the  fork	fails,	returns −1 and sets If the exec fails,
       returns the status value returned by (see wait(2)) for a	 process  that
       terminates with a call of

ERRORS
       If errors are encountered, sets values as described by fork(2).

FILES
SEE ALSO
       sh(1), fork(2), exec(2), wait(2), thread_safety(5).

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE
								    system(3S)
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