didn't--it tried to run a program literally called I<"echo surprise">,
didn't find it, and set C<$?> to a non-zero value indicating failure.
+Beginning with v5.6.0, Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for
+output before the exec, but this may not be supported on some platforms
+(see L<perlport>). To be safe, you may need to set C<$|> ($AUTOFLUSH
+in English) or call the C<autoflush()> method of C<IO::Handle> on any
+open handles in order to avoid lost output.
+
Note that C<exec> will not call your C<END> blocks, nor will it call
any C<DESTROY> methods in your objects.
example, using copy-on-write technology on data pages), making it the
dominant paradigm for multitasking over the last few decades.
-All files opened for output are flushed before forking the child process.
+Beginning with v5.6.0, Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for
+output before forking the child process, but this may not be supported
+on some platforms (see L<perlport>). To be safe, you may need to set
+C<$|> ($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call the C<autoflush()> method of
+C<IO::Handle> on any open handles in order to avoid duplicate output.
If you C<fork> without ever waiting on your children, you will
accumulate zombies. On some systems, you can avoid this by setting
us. See L<perlipc/"Using open() for IPC">
for more examples of this. (You are not allowed to C<open> to a command
that pipes both in I<and> out, but see L<IPC::Open2>, L<IPC::Open3>,
-and L<perlipc/"Bidirectional Communication"> for alternatives.)
+and L<perlipc/"Bidirectional Communication with Another Process">
+for alternatives.)
If MODE is C<'|-'>, the filename is interpreted as a
command to which output is to be piped, and if MODE is
See L<perlipc/"Safe Pipe Opens"> for more examples of this.
-NOTE: On any operation that may do a fork, all files opened for output
-are flushed before the fork is attempted. On systems that support a
+Beginning with v5.6.0, Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for
+output before any operation that may do a fork, but this may not be
+supported on some platforms (see L<perlport>). To be safe, you may need
+to set C<$|> ($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call the C<autoflush()> method
+of C<IO::Handle> on any open handles.
+
+On systems that support a
close-on-exec flag on files, the flag will be set for the newly opened
file descriptor as determined by the value of $^F. See L<perlvar/$^F>.
subroutine.
If the subroutine's prototype is C<($$)>, the elements to be compared
-are passed by reference in C<@_>, as for a normal subroutine. If not,
-the normal calling code for subroutines is bypassed in the interests of
-efficiency, and the elements to be compared are passed into the subroutine
+are passed by reference in C<@_>, as for a normal subroutine. This is
+slower than unprototyped subroutines, where the elements to be
+compared are passed into the subroutine
as the package global variables $a and $b (see example below). Note that
in the latter case, it is usually counter-productive to declare $a and
$b as lexicals.
it is split into words and passed directly to C<execvp>, which is
more efficient.
-All files opened for output are flushed before attempting the exec().
+Beginning with v5.6.0, Perl will attempt to flush all files opened for
+output before any operation that may do a fork, but this may not be
+supported on some platforms (see L<perlport>). To be safe, you may need
+to set C<$|> ($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call the C<autoflush()> method
+of C<IO::Handle> on any open handles.
The return value is the exit status of the program as
returned by the C<wait> call. To get the actual exit value divide by