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List:       glibc-alpha
Subject:    Re: [Bug 214871] New: Man(3) system outdated
From:       "Alejandro Colomar \(man-pages\) via Libc-alpha" <libc-alpha () sourceware ! org>
Date:       2021-10-30 11:55:54
Message-ID: a2689ade-9e63-a586-5530-dcb7e27068c6 () gmail ! com
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[CC += Glibc, Adhemerval]

Hi Adhemerval,

On 10/29/21 22:37, bugzilla-daemon@bugzilla.kernel.org wrote:
> https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=214871
> 
>              Bug ID: 214871
>             Summary: Man(3) system outdated
>             Product: Documentation
>             Version: unspecified
>            Hardware: All
>                  OS: Linux
>              Status: NEW
>            Severity: normal
>            Priority: P1
>           Component: man-pages
>            Assignee: documentation_man-pages@kernel-bugs.osdl.org
>            Reporter: mikekearney85@hotmail.com
>          Regression: No
> 
> During my recent university work, I have noticed the man (3) page for system
> (https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/system.3.html) states:
> 
> The system() library function uses fork(2) to create a child process that
> executes the shell command specified in command using execl(3) as follows:
> execl("/bin/sh", "sh", "-c", command, (char *) NULL);
> 
> On reading the source code for system, this caused me some confusion.
> Eventually I found a commit from 2018
> (https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=commitdiff;h=5fb7fc96350575c9adb1316833e48ca11553be49),
> in which fork and exec were replaced by posix_spawn. The explains why I could
> not aline the man page with the source code.
> 

I was about to change that line to say that it works "as if" using 
fork(2) and execl(3), as POSIX says, but then, reading the page further, 
it talks about many implementation details that seem to relate to when 
glibc did actually use fork(2).  They may be outdated now, so I think 
it's better if someone from glibc that knows its current details reviews 
the full page and proposes changes.

Thanks,

Alex


-- 
Alejandro Colomar
Linux man-pages comaintainer; https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/
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