FEXECVE

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (3)
Updated: 2009-02-04
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NAME

fexecve - execute program specified via file descriptor

SYNOPSIS

#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <unistd.h>

int fexecve(int fd, char *const argv[], char *const envp[]);

DESCRIPTION

fexecve() performs the same task as execve(2), with the difference that the file to be executed is specified via a file descriptor, fd, rather than via a pathname. The file descriptor fd must be opened read-only, and the caller must have permission to execute the file that it refers to.

RETURN VALUE

A successful call to fexecve() never returns. On error, the function returns, with a result value of -1, and errno is set appropriately.

ERRORS

Errors are as for execve(2), with the following additions:

EINVAL: fd is not a valid file descriptor, or argv is NULL, or envp is NULL.
ENOSYS: The /proc file system could not be accessed.

VERSIONS

fexecve() is implemented since glibc 2.3.2.

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2008. This function is not specified in POSIX.1-2001, and is not widely available on other systems.

NOTES

On Linux, fexecve() is implemented using the proc(5) file system, so /proc needs to be mounted and available at the time of the call.

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.