_spawnvp, _wspawnvp

Creates a process and executes it.

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 _spawnvp(
   int mode,
   const char *cmdname,
   const char *const *argv
);
intptr_t _wspawnvp(
   int mode,
   const wchar_t *cmdname,
   const wchar_t *const *argv
);

Parameters

mode
Execution mode for calling the process.

cmdname
Path of the file to be executed.

argv
Array of pointers to arguments. The argument argv[0] is usually a pointer to a path in real mode or to the program name in protected mode, and argv[1] through argv[n] are pointers to the character strings forming the new argument list. The argument argv[n+1] must be a NULL pointer to mark the end of the argument list.

Return value

The return value from a synchronous _spawnvp or _wspawnvp (_P_WAIT specified for mode) is the exit status of the new process. The return value from an asynchronous _spawnvp or _wspawnvp (_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 uses a nonzero argument to call the exit routine. 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 return codes, see errno, _doserrno, _sys_errlist, and _sys_nerr.

Remarks

Each of these functions creates a new process and executes it, and passes an array of pointers to command-line arguments and uses the PATH environment variable to find the file to execute.

These functions validate their parameters. If either cmdname or argv is a null pointer, or if argv points to null pointer, or argv[0] is an empty string, the invalid parameter handler is invoked, 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.

By default, this function's global state is scoped to the application. To change this behavior, see Global state in the CRT.

Requirements

Routine	Required header
_spawnvp	<stdio.h> or <process.h>
_wspawnvp	<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