Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:23750 comp.lang.c:15783
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!eutrc3!wzv!wietse
From: wietse@wzv.UUCP (Wietse Z. Venema)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: system() always returns 0?
Keywords: MSC5.0
Message-ID: <188@wzv.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 89 20:53:44 GMT
References: <782@hawkmoon.MN.ORG>
Reply-To: wietse@wzv.UUCP (Wietse Z. Venema)
Organization: Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Lines: 22

In article <782@hawkmoon.MN.ORG> det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes:
>Has anyone encountered a problem with the Microsoft C 5.0 compiler always
>returning a 0 from the system() call, no matter what the actual command
>executed by system() returns?

Command.com always returns a zero status. There are two alternatives:

(a) Do not use a shell, but use the spawnlp() functions. These are
    similar to the unix execlp() functions, but instead of over-
    laying the calling process they just suspend it.

(b) Use a different shell. This may not be practical if your program
    is to be used on other machines.

In case of alternative (a) you will have to do your own i/o redirection
handling.  Caveat:  in some cases I had to save the positions of all
stdio streams open for reading from files, and restore them after the
system() routine terminated.
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