Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 11:26:47 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
X-Sender: eliz AT is
To: Davin McCall <DavMac AT iname DOT com>, Goh Yong Kwang <ykgoh AT email DOT com>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: What's the difference between system, spawn and exec?
In-Reply-To: <37bad5a7.54874091@newsserver.cc.monash.edu.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.990819112339.9461C-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com
Precedence: bulk


On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Davin McCall wrote:

> system() uses the shell (command processor) to process the command you
> give it. So, you can use internal shell commands.

This is functionally correct, but not 100% accurate in the case of 
DJGPP.  The DJGPP version of `system' doesn't call the command processor 
unless it absolutely has to.  Usually, it emulates COMMAND.COM instead of 
calling it.  Thus, you can have long command lines, redirection to 
special files like /dev/null, and other niceties.  See the description of 
`system' in the library docs, for more details.