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Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!swbatl!texbell!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Wish for 1.4 (re fork*)
Keywords: announcing, first list in Nov
Message-ID: <4340@sugar.hackercorp.com>
Date: 11 Oct 89 11:49:26 GMT
References: <13920002@hpfelg.HP.COM>
Reply-To: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Sugar Land Unix - Houston
Lines: 36

In article <13920002@hpfelg.HP.COM> koren@hpfelg.HP.COM (Steve Koren) writes:
> So, how do you do it?  There must be an easy way to execute a program
> that won't crash on some programs, and will let you have the return
> code back from the command, and lets you redirect I/O.

Unfortunately there isn't. My dearest wish for 1.4, since they're trashing
all the BCPL excrement, is a System() that allows you to specify:

	- The name of the program to execute.
	- The command line to pass to the program.
	- The standard input of the command (CurrentInput).
	- The standard output of the command (CurrentOutput).
	- The command/terminal input of the command (DefaultInput). This
	  should be what you get if you open "*" for reading.
	- The error/terminal output of the command (DefaultOutput). This
	  should be what you get if you open "*" for writing.
	- The initial stack size of the command.
	- The priority of the command.
	- The current directory of the command.
	- Either a flag that means "wait until the command has finished", or
	  a message port to wait on for the command to complete. If this is
	  not provided, the command should be run asynchronously and clean
	  up after itself (This requires a DupHandle() call as well).

The ability to run BCPL commands is only needed if there are BCPL commands
shipped with 1.4.

The return from this routine should include:

	- An indication that the command was sucessfully launched.
	- The return status of the command (may be in a reply message).
-- 
Peter "Have you hugged your wolf today" da Silva      `-_-'
...texbell!sugar!peter, or peter@sugar.hackercorp.com  'U`
``Back off dude! I'm a topologist!''
	-- Andrew Molitor <amolitor@eagle.wesleyan.edu>