Subject: Re: Real vfork() (was: third results)
To: Sean Witham <Sean.Witham@asa.co.uk>
From: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
List: tech-kern
Date: 04/09/1998 16:24:46
On Fri, 10 Apr 1998 00:31:14 +0100 (BST) 
 Sean Witham <Sean.Witham@asa.co.uk> wrote:

 > Would a better long term option be to implement a forkexec() atomic
 > system call which someone else mentioned ? I'm not against a well
 > documented vfork. I just wondered what people thought of the atomic
 > fork and exec system call.
 > 
 > If we are to have vfork there should some comments about its problems
 > and maybe a note in the man pages BUGS section suggesting the
 > implmentation of forkexec().

I don't think so, no... for a few reasons:

	(1) No other UNIX-like system has that.

	(2) vfork(2) is actually documented in a standard now.

	(3) vfork(2) is an "expected" interface for this sort of thing.

	(4) It makes decoding the error in the parent slightly more
	    difficult.

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
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