exec(3tcl)
NAME
exec - Invoke subprocesses
SYNOPSIS
exec ?switches? arg ?arg ...? ______________________________________________________________________________
DESCRIPTION
This command treats its arguments as the specification of one or more
subprocesses to execute. The arguments take the form of a standard
shell pipeline where each arg becomes one word of a command, and each
distinct command becomes a subprocess.
If the initial arguments to exec start with - then they are treated as
command-line switches and are not part of the pipeline specification.
The following switches are currently supported:
-ignorestderr
Stops the exec command from treating the output of
messages to the pipeline's standard error channel as an
error case.
-keepnewline Retains a trailing newline in the pipeline's output.
Normally a trailing newline will be deleted.
-- Marks the end of switches. The argument following this
one will be treated as the first arg even if it starts
with a -.
If an arg (or pair of args) has one of the forms described below then
it is used by exec to control the flow of input and output among the
subprocess(es). Such arguments will not be passed to the
subprocess(es). In forms such as "< fileName", fileName may either be
in a separate argument from "<" or in the same argument with no
intervening space (i.e. "<fileName").
| Separates distinct commands in the pipeline. The
standard output of the preceding command will be piped
into the standard input of the next command.
|& Separates distinct commands in the pipeline. Both
standard output and standard error of the preceding
command will be piped into the standard input of the
next command. This form of redirection overrides forms
such as 2> and >&.
< fileName The file named by fileName is opened and used as the
standard input for the first command in the pipeline.
<@ fileId FileId must be the identifier for an open file, such as
the return value from a previous call to open. It is
used as the standard input for the first command in the
pipeline. FileId must have been opened for reading.
<< value Value is passed to the first command as its standard
input.
> fileName Standard output from the last command is redirected to
the file named fileName, overwriting its previous
contents.
2> fileName Standard error from all commands in the pipeline is
redirected to the file named fileName, overwriting its
previous contents.
>& fileName Both standard output from the last command and standard
error from all commands are redirected to the file named
fileName, overwriting its previous contents.
>> fileName Standard output from the last command is redirected to
the file named fileName, appending to it rather than
overwriting it.
2>> fileName Standard error from all commands in the pipeline is
redirected to the file named fileName, appending to it
rather than overwriting it.
>>& fileName Both standard output from the last command and standard
error from all commands are redirected to the file named
fileName, appending to it rather than overwriting it.
>@ fileId FileId must be the identifier for an open file, such as
the return value from a previous call to open. Standard
output from the last command is redirected to fileId's
file, which must have been opened for writing.
2>@ fileId FileId must be the identifier for an open file, such as
the return value from a previous call to open. Standard
error from all commands in the pipeline is redirected to
fileId's file. The file must have been opened for
writing.
2>@1 Standard error from all commands in the pipeline is
redirected to the command result. This operator is only
valid at the end of the command pipeline.
>&@ fileId FileId must be the identifier for an open file, such as
the return value from a previous call to open. Both
standard output from the last command and standard error
from all commands are redirected to fileId's file. The
file must have been opened for writing.
If standard output has not been redirected then the exec command
returns the standard output from the last command in the pipeline,
unless "2>@1" was specified, in which case standard error is included
as well. If any of the commands in the pipeline exit abnormally or are
killed or suspended, then exec will return an error and the error
message will include the pipeline's output followed by error messages
describing the abnormal terminations; the -errorcode return option will
contain additional information about the last abnormal termination
encountered. If any of the commands writes to its standard error file
and that standard error is not redirected and -ignorestderr is not
specified, then exec will return an error; the error message will
include the pipeline's standard output, followed by messages about
abnormal terminations (if any), followed by the standard error output.
If the last character of the result or error message is a newline then
that character is normally deleted from the result or error message.
This is consistent with other Tcl return values, which do not normally
end with newlines. However, if -keepnewline is specified then the
trailing newline is retained.
If standard input is not redirected with "<", "<<" or "<@" then the
standard input for the first command in the pipeline is taken from the
application's current standard input.
If the last arg is "&" then the pipeline will be executed in
background. In this case the exec command will return a list whose
elements are the process identifiers for all of the subprocesses in the
pipeline. The standard output from the last command in the pipeline
will go to the application's standard output if it has not been
redirected, and error output from all of the commands in the pipeline
will go to the application's standard error file unless redirected.
The first word in each command is taken as the command name; tilde-
substitution is performed on it, and if the result contains no slashes
then the directories in the PATH environment variable are searched for
an executable by the given name. If the name contains a slash then it
must refer to an executable reachable from the current directory. No
"glob" expansion or other shell-like substitutions are performed on the
arguments to commands.
PORTABILITY ISSUES
Windows (all versions)
Reading from or writing to a socket, using the "@ fileId"
notation, does not work. When reading from a socket, a 16-bit
DOS application will hang and a 32-bit application will return
immediately with end-of-file. When either type of application
writes to a socket, the information is instead sent to the
console, if one is present, or is discarded.
The Tk console text widget does not provide real standard IO
capabilities. Under Tk, when redirecting from standard input,
all applications will see an immediate end-of-file; information
redirected to standard output or standard error will be
discarded.
Either forward or backward slashes are accepted as path
separators for arguments to Tcl commands. When executing an
application, the path name specified for the application may
also contain forward or backward slashes as path separators.
Bear in mind, however, that most Windows applications accept
arguments with forward slashes only as option delimiters and
backslashes only in paths. Any arguments to an application that
specify a path name with forward slashes will not automatically
be converted to use the backslash character. If an argument
contains forward slashes as the path separator, it may or may
not be recognized as a path name, depending on the program.
Additionally, when calling a 16-bit DOS or Windows 3.X
application, all path names must use the short, cryptic, path
format (e.g., using "applba~1.def" instead of
"applbakery.default"), which can be obtained with the "file
attributes fileName -shortname" command.
Two or more forward or backward slashes in a row in a path refer
to a network path. For example, a simple concatenation of the
root directory c:/ with a subdirectory /windows/system will
yield c://windows/system (two slashes together), which refers to
the mount point called system on the machine called windows (and
the c:/ is ignored), and is not equivalent to c:/windows/system,
which describes a directory on the current computer. The file
join command should be used to concatenate path components.
Note that there are two general types of Win32 console
applications:
[1] CLI --- CommandLine Interface, simple stdio
exchange. netstat.exe for example.
[2] TUI --- Textmode User Interface, any application
that accesses the console API for doing such
things as cursor movement, setting text color,
detecting key presses and mouse movement, etc. An
example would be telnet.exe from Windows 2000.
These types of applications are not common in a
windows environment, but do exist.
exec will not work well with TUI applications when a console is
not present, as is done when launching applications under wish.
It is desirable to have console applications hidden and
detached. This is a designed-in limitation as exec wants to
communicate over pipes. The Expect extension addresses this
issue when communicating with a TUI application.
Windows NT
When attempting to execute an application, exec first searches
for the name as it was specified. Then, in order, .com, .exe,
and .bat are appended to the end of the specified name and it
searches for the longer name. If a directory name was not
specified as part of the application name, the following
directories are automatically searched in order when attempting
to locate the application:
* The directory from which the Tcl executable was loaded.
* The current directory.
* The Windows NT 32-bit system directory.
* The Windows NT 16-bit system directory.
* The Windows NT home directory.
* The directories listed in the path.
In order to execute shell built-in commands like dir and copy,
the caller must prepend the desired command with "cmd.exe /c "
because built-in commands are not implemented using executables.
Windows 9x
When attempting to execute an application, exec first searches
for the name as it was specified. Then, in order, .com, .exe,
and .bat are appended to the end of the specified name and it
searches for the longer name. If a directory name was not
specified as part of the application name, the following
directories are automatically searched in order when attempting
to locate the application:
* The directory from which the Tcl executable was loaded.
* The current directory.
* The Windows 9x system directory.
* The Windows 9x home directory.
* The directories listed in the path.
In order to execute shell built-in commands like dir and copy,
the caller must prepend the desired command with "command.com
/c " because built-in commands are not implemented using
executables.
Once a 16-bit DOS application has read standard input from a
console and then quit, all subsequently run 16-bit DOS
applications will see the standard input as already closed.
32-bit applications do not have this problem and will run
correctly, even after a 16-bit DOS application thinks that
standard input is closed. There is no known workaround for this
bug at this time.
Redirection between the NUL: device and a 16-bit application
does not always work. When redirecting from NUL:, some
applications may hang, others will get an infinite stream of
"0x01" bytes, and some will actually correctly get an immediate
end-of-file; the behavior seems to depend upon something
compiled into the application itself. When redirecting greater
than 4K or so to NUL:, some applications will hang. The above
problems do not happen with 32-bit applications.
All DOS 16-bit applications are run synchronously. All standard
input from a pipe to a 16-bit DOS application is collected into
a temporary file; the other end of the pipe must be closed
before the 16-bit DOS application begins executing. All
standard output or error from a 16-bit DOS application to a pipe
is collected into temporary files; the application must
terminate before the temporary files are redirected to the next
stage of the pipeline. This is due to a workaround for a
Windows 95 bug in the implementation of pipes, and is how the
standard Windows 95 DOS shell handles pipes itself.
Certain applications, such as command.com, should not be
executed interactively. Applications which directly access the
console window, rather than reading from their standard input
and writing to their standard output may fail, hang Tcl, or even
hang the system if their own private console window is not
available to them.
Unix
The exec command is fully functional and works as described.
UNIX EXAMPLES
Here are some examples of the use of the exec command on Unix.
To execute a simple program and get its result:
exec uname -a
To execute a program that can return a non-zero result, you should wrap
the call to exec in catch and check the contents of the -errorcode
return option if you have an error:
set status 0
if {[catch {exec grep foo bar.txt} results options]} {
set details [dict get $options -errorcode]
if {[lindex $details 0] eq "CHILDSTATUS"} {
set status [lindex $details 2]
} else {
# Some kind of unexpected failure
}
}
When translating a command from a Unix shell invocation, care should be
taken over the fact that single quote characters have no special
significance to Tcl. Thus:
awk '{sum += $1} END {print sum}' numbers.list
would be translated into something like:
exec awk {{sum += $1} END {print sum}} numbers.list
If you are converting invocations involving shell globbing, you should
remember that Tcl does not handle globbing or expand things into
multiple arguments by default. Instead you should write things like
this:
exec ls -l {*}[glob *.tcl]
WINDOWS EXAMPLES
Here are some examples of the use of the exec command on Windows.
To start an instance of notepad editing a file without waiting for the
user to finish editing the file:
exec notepad myfile.txt &
To print a text file using notepad:
exec notepad /p myfile.txt
If a program calls other programs, such as is common with compilers,
then you may need to resort to batch files to hide the console windows
that sometimes pop up:
exec cmp.bat somefile.c -o somefile
With the file cmp.bat looking something like:
@gcc %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
Sometimes you need to be careful, as different programs may have the
same name and be in the path. It can then happen that typing a command
at the DOS prompt finds a different program than the same command run
via exec. This is because of the (documented) differences in behaviour
between exec and DOS batch files.
When in doubt, use the command auto_execok: it will return the complete
path to the program as seen by the exec command. This applies
especially when you want to run "internal" commands like dir from a Tcl
script (if you just want to list filenames, use the glob command.) To
do that, use this:
exec {*}[auto_execok dir] *.tcl
SEE ALSO
error(3tcl), open(3tcl)
KEYWORDS
execute, pipeline, redirection, subprocess
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