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From: mts@cosivax.UUCP (Michael Stolarchuk)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: 4.2/sysV difference
Message-ID: <160@cosivax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Jan-86 13:38:18 EST
Article-I.D.: cosivax.160
Posted: Mon Jan 13 13:38:18 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jan-86 08:02:33 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: COSI, Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 19

I was recently debugging a routine using "execvp".  The bug was actually
a difference between system V and 4.2.  I don't understand the difference,
and hope someone in the field can explain to me why the two systems do the
"execvp" differently.

On 4.2 systems the environment variable "PATH" used by "execvp"
to locate the directories to scan.  The path elements (directories)
are separated by ':'.  They can also be separated by '-'.

If path=(/bin /usr/bin /usr/local ... /usr/new test-test), and 
executable file in test-test, even when csh finds the executable,
a small test program doing execvp for the file doens't find it.

It makes sense to me there is a reason for the termination of the
element by '-', but I can't figure out what the reason is.

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Empty-S, in Michigan.
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