_spawnlp, _wspawnlp

Creates and executes a new process.

Important

This API cannot be used in applications that execute in the Windows Runtime. For more information, see CRT functions not supported in Universal Windows Platform apps.

Syntax

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 arg0 argument is usually a pointer to cmdname. The arguments arg1 through argN are pointers to the character strings forming the new argument list. Following argN, there must be a NULL pointer to mark the end of the argument list.

Return value

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 didn't 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 isn't started). In this case, errno is set to one of the following values.

Value	Description
E2BIG	Argument list exceeds 1024 bytes.
EINVAL	mode argument is invalid.
ENOENT	File or path isn't found.
ENOEXEC	Specified file isn't 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 errno, _doserrno, _sys_errlist, and _sys_nerr.

Remarks

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.

Requirements

Routine	Required header
_spawnlp	<process.h>
_wspawnlp	<stdio.h> or <wchar.h>

For more compatibility information, see Compatibility.

Example

See the example in _spawn, _wspawn functions.

See also

Process and environment control
_spawn, _wspawn functions
abort
atexit
_exec, _wexec functions
exit, _Exit, _exit
_flushall
_getmbcp
_onexit, _onexit_m
_setmbcp
system, _wsystem