shell in programs

[Guy Harris]

>Another advantage to *not* using system() is
>  "There is an enormous amount of overhead associated with each system
>   call. The starting program has to fork and exec the shell, and then
>   the shell has to fork and exec the requested program..." [1]

Yes, but if the person wants to run an arbitrary shell command - and
that's what it sounded like the original poster wanted to do - you have
to run the shell anyway (or precisely duplicate its actions, which seems
like a waste).