PROLOG

       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of
       this interface may differ (consult the corresponding 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  redirection 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 Section 2.8.1, 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

       Section 2.14, Special Built-In Utilities

COPYRIGHT

       Portions  of  this  text  are  reprinted  and  reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std
       1003.1, 2013 Edition, Standard for Information Technology  --  Portable  Operating  System
       Interface  (POSIX),  The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013 by the
       Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc  and  The  Open  Group.   (This  is
       POSIX.1-2008  with  the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  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.unix.org/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page are most  likely  to  have
       been  introduced  during  the conversion of the source files to man page format. To report
       such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .