_spawnlp, _wspawnlp
Creates and executes a new process.
intptr_t _spawnlp( int mode, const char *cmdname, const char *arg0, const char *arg1, ... const char *argn, NULL ); intptr_t _wspawnlp( int mode, const wchar_t *cmdname, const wchar_t *arg0, const wchar_t *arg1, ... const wchar_t *argn, NULL );
Parameters
- mode
-
Execution mode for the calling process.
- cmdname
-
Path of the file to be executed.
- arg0, arg1, ... argn
-
List of pointers to arguments.
The return value from a synchronous _spawnlp or _wspawnlp (_P_WAIT specified for mode) is the exit status of the new process. The return value from an asynchronous _spawnlp or _wspawnlp (_P_NOWAIT or _P_NOWAITO specified for mode) is the process handle. The exit status is 0 if the process terminated normally. You can set the exit status to a nonzero value if the spawned process specifically calls the exit routine with a nonzero argument. If the new process did not explicitly set a positive exit status, a positive exit status indicates an abnormal exit with an abort or an interrupt. A return value of –1 indicates an error (the new process is not started). In this case, errno is set to one of the following values.
- E2BIG
-
Argument list exceeds 1024 bytes.
- EINVAL
-
mode argument is invalid.
- ENOENT
-
File or path is not found.
- ENOEXEC
-
Specified file is not executable or has invalid executable-file format.
- ENOMEM
-
Not enough memory is available to execute the new process.
For more information about these and other return codes, see _doserrno, errno, _sys_errlist, and _sys_nerr.
Each of these functions creates and executes a new process, passing each command-line argument as a separate parameter and using the PATH environment variable to find the file to execute.
These functions validate their parameters. If either cmdname or arg0 is an empty string or a null pointer, these functions generate an invalid parameter exception, as described in Parameter Validation. If execution is allowed to continue, these functions set errno to EINVAL, and return -1. No new process is spawned.
| Routine | Required header | Compatibility |
|---|---|---|
| _spawnlp | <process.h> | Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003 |
| _wspawnlp | <stdio.h> or <wchar.h> | Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003 |
For more compatibility information, see Compatibility in the Introduction.
See the example in _spawn, _wspawn Functions.
