Thread: Starting a detached process in Linux

How do I start a program as a detached process in Linux?
What I mean is I would like to call a function foo("/bin/bash") and it would start bash and then promptly return, with out waiting for bash to quit.

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i686-pc-linux-gnu
Fedora 14, Gnu GCC

You could just fork() and then call your function in the child using one of the exec() functions.

But would that work if my program ended like this:

Code:

...
foo(argv[0]);
return 0;

So that my program would start up a new instance of itself and then exit, without waiting for the new process to quit.

Originally Posted by Benji Wiebe

But would that work if my program ended like this:

Well a sure way to find out Benji is to try it. But yes, the parent can exit before the child, and spawn other processes first.