关于fork，exec，waitpid以及fgets换行替换为null的说明

 The following example is from the apue sourecode,but it is a very good example for understanding the fork,exec,waitpid concept ,especially for beginning to learn the process.

 

int
main(void)
{
 char buf[MAXLINE]; /* from apue.h */
 pid_t pid;
 int  status;

 printf("%% "); /* print prompt (printf requires %% to print %) */
 while (fgets(buf, MAXLINE, stdin) != NULL) {
  if (buf[strlen(buf) - 1] == '\n')
   buf[strlen(buf) - 1] = 0; /* replace newline with null */

  if ((pid = fork()) < 0) {
   err_sys("fork error");
  } else if (pid == 0) {  /* child */
   execlp(buf, buf, (char *)0);
   err_ret("couldn't execute: %s", buf);
   exit(127);
  }

  /* parent */
  if ((pid = waitpid(pid, &status, 0)) < 0)
   err_sys("waitpid error");
  printf("%% ");
 }
 exit(0);
}

Note :The red mark sentence is useful for strlen or other string operation .We do this because the some string function wants a null-terminated argument, not a newline-terminated argument.