diff Doc/lib/libos.tex @ 14789:be2df9935edd legacy-trunk

Added explanation of the use of the first program argument passed to the exec*() family of functions.
author Fred Drake <fdrake@acm.org>
date Sat, 23 Sep 2000 05:22:07 +0000
parents 266fb6302f31
children ea2ba910e5f0
line wrap: on
line diff
--- a/Doc/lib/libos.tex	Sat Sep 23 04:55:48 2000 +0000
+++ b/Doc/lib/libos.tex	Sat Sep 23 05:22:07 2000 +0000
@@ -758,6 +758,15 @@
 
 These functions may be used to create and manage processes.
 
+The various \function{exec*()} functions take a list of arguments for
+the new program loaded into the process.  In each case, the first of
+these arguments is passed to the new program as its own name rather
+than as an argument a user may have typed on a command line.  For the
+C programmer, this is the \code{argv[0]} passed to a program's
+\cfunction{main()}.  For example, \samp{os.execv('/bin/echo', ['foo',
+'bar'])} will only print \samp{bar} on standard output; \samp{foo}
+will seem to be ignored.
+
 
 \begin{funcdesc}{abort}{}
 Generate a \constant{SIGABRT} signal to the current process.  On