Re: master 2c79a8f 2/2: Use posix_spawn if possible.

[Andy Moreton]

On Fri 01 Jan 2021, Alan Third wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 01, 2021 at 11:38:14PM +0000, Andy Moreton wrote:
>> On Thu 31 Dec 2020, Philipp Stephani wrote:
>> > The annoying thing about this, though, is that it doesn't work on the
>> > BSDs (including macOS). For pty processes on those systems we'll have
>> > to continue using fork/vfork for the time being.
>> > I think that using posix_spawn on GNU/Linux and for non-pty processes
>> > is still a significant win, though.
>> 
>> Can I ask why ? You have not yet explained what benefit this change
>> brings, and the length of the discussion shows that there are
>> difficulties with it. What is improved by using posix_spawn ?
>
> posix_spawn is supposed to be significantly faster than fork/exec on
> macOS and Cygwin.

Thanks Alan, useful info. However Philipp started with Linux, so there
ought to also be something useful there that motivated these patches. I
would be interested to learn what helps on Linux.

    AndyM