system3
Pass a command to the shell
Usage
#include <stdlib.h>
int
system(const char *command);
Library
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
Overview
The system() function hands the argument command to the command interpreter sh(1). The calling process waits for the shell to finish executing the command, ignoring SIGINT and SIGQUIT, and blocking SIGCHLD.
If command is a NULL pointer, system() will return non-zero if the command interpreter sh(1) is available, and zero if it is not.
Return values
The system() function returns the exit status of the shell as returned by waitpid(2), or -1 if an error occurred when invoking fork(2) or waitpid(2). A return value of 127 means the execution of the shell failed.
Releases
163 releases since Mac OS X 10.0; the text changed 4 times.