[PATCH] add exec -a support (preliminary)

Denys Vlasenko vda.linux at googlemail.com
Tue Apr 18 17:49:17 UTC 2017


Fixed in current git.

On Sat, Mar 18, 2017 at 1:06 PM, Patrick Pief <p.pief at zoho.com> wrote:
>  ---- On Wed, 01 Feb 2017 15:22:39 +0100 Patrick Pief <p.pief at zoho.com> wrote ----
>  >  ---- On Wed, 01 Feb 2017 07:30:46 +0100 Denys Vlasenko <vda.linux at googlemail.com> wrote ----
>  >  > On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 12:56 AM, Patrick Pief <p.pief at zoho.com> wrote:
>  >  > > There were several times where I thought that having "exec -a" in busybox would
>  >  > > be neat, and while "exec -a" is not POSIX it is still supported in a lot of
>  >  > > shells (see http://unix.stackexchange.com/q/250681/117599 ).
>  >  >
>  >  > It can be reasonably easily implemented, but I have hard time imagining
>  >  > why would you need it in real-world usage.
>  >  >
>  >  > Usually when people ask for something I assume they do need it
>  >  > (and can imagine some scenarios). In this case, I don't see them.
>  >  >
>  >  > Why do you need it?
>  >  >
>  >
>  > Last time I needed it was for a wrapper script so that there would be no
>  > difference of how the process appears in `ps` which some 3rd party scripts
>  > uses to check whether the specific program is running.
>  >
>  > As a workaround I simply put the original executable in a subfolder and then
>  > did a ´exec´, but with ´exec -a´ I could've simply renamed it. And the case
>  > before that was similar but I can't remember exactly what it was for, I believe
>  > it was some application which itself behaved differently depending on ´argv[0]´.
>  >
>
> Any update on this? Yay or nay on my patch?
>


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