This is the mail archive of the
gcc-patches@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: PATCH RFC: Remove fork from collect2
Ian Lance Taylor <ian@wasabisystems.com> writes:
> Zack Weinberg <zack@codesourcery.com> writes:
>
>> Gunther Nikl <gni@gecko.de> writes:
>>
>> > Yes, popen() is supported. It uses vfork+execl itself.
>> > I just noticed that FreeBSDs popen() does uses vfork(). Thus it seems
>> > possible to use it. I don't remember why vfork was dropped in pexecute
>> > by Zack Weinberg.
>>
>> It's not safe. The pexecute child code does stuff you can't do after
>> vfork.
>
> Only in the error case, though, in which execv fails. That case more
> or less never happens.
>
> How would you feel if we switched back to vfork, and changed the error
> handling?
If you can think of a reliable way to do the error handling while
using vfork, go right ahead. I've been unable to come up with one.
zw