suse man page for exec

EXEC(1P)						     POSIX Programmer's Manual							  EXEC(1P)

PROLOG
       This  manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the correspond-
       ing Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME
       exec - execute commands and open, close, or copy file descriptors

SYNOPSIS
       exec [command [argument ...]]

DESCRIPTION
       The exec utility shall open, close, and/or copy file descriptors as specified by any redirections as part of the command.

       If exec is specified without command or arguments, and any file descriptors with numbers greater than 2 are opened  with  associated  redi-
       rection	statements, it is unspecified whether those file descriptors remain open when the shell invokes another utility. Scripts concerned
       that child shells could misuse open file descriptors can always close them explicitly, as shown in one of the following examples.

       If exec is specified with command, it shall replace the shell with command without creating a new process.   If	arguments  are	specified,
       they shall be arguments to command.  Redirection affects the current shell execution environment.

OPTIONS
       None.

OPERANDS
       See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN
       Not used.

INPUT FILES
       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
       Default.

STDOUT
       Not used.

STDERR
       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       If command is specified, exec shall not return to the shell; rather, the exit status of the process shall be the exit status of the program
       implementing command, which overlaid the shell. If command is not found, the exit status shall be 127. If command is found, but it  is  not
       an  executable  utility,  the  exit status shall be 126. If a redirection error occurs (see Consequences of Shell Errors ), the shell shall
       exit with a value in the range 1-125. Otherwise, exec shall return a zero exit status.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       None.

EXAMPLES
       Open readfile as file descriptor 3 for reading:

	      exec 3< readfile

       Open writefile as file descriptor 4 for writing:

	      exec 4> writefile

       Make file descriptor 5 a copy of file descriptor 0:

	      exec 5<&0

       Close file descriptor 3:

	      exec 3<&-

       Cat the file maggie by replacing the current shell with the cat utility:

	      exec cat maggie

RATIONALE
       Most historical implementations were not conformant in that:

	      foo=bar exec cmd

       did not pass foo to cmd.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
       None.

SEE ALSO
       Special Built-In Utilities

COPYRIGHT
       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
       ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
       Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and  the  original  IEEE
       and  The  Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained
       online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

IEEE
/The Open Group						       2003								  EXEC(1P)