Execing processes

Context

syscall.Exec replaces the current Go process with another program (no return). This is rarely used but available for advanced cases.

Example

Replace the current process with /bin/ls.

Code example

package main

import (
    "syscall"
)

func main() {
    binary := "/bin/ls"
    args := []string{"ls", "-l"}
    env := syscall.Environ()

    err := syscall.Exec(binary, args, env)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
}

Output (example)

total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 user  staff  0 Jan 1 12:00 file.txt

Useful links

• syscall.Exec documentation
• Go by Example: Execing Processes