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lush/issues/03-command-execution-runtime.md
Cormac Shannon bad40fb65b Standardize issue status labels to done/open/in progress
Rename resolved→done (#1-4, #11), closed→done (#13, #18),
open (post-core)→open (#7), mark #9 as superseded by #21.
2026-03-15 19:33:49 +00:00

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# 03 — Implement direct command execution runtime (no shell)
**Status:** done
**Blocked by:** #02
**Blocks:** #06, #07
Implement the C runtime that executes commands when a backtick expression is evaluated.
**Critical constraint:** do NOT spawn a shell (no `bash`, `dash`, `sh`, `system()`, `popen()`).
## Return value
Backtick expressions return a table:
```lua
local r = `ls -lha`
r.code -- exit code (integer)
r.stdout -- captured stdout (string)
r.stderr -- captured stderr (string)
```
## Implementation approach
- `fork()` + `execvp()` on Unix/macOS
- Set up two pipes: one for stdout, one for stderr
- In child: `dup2()` pipes onto fd 1 and fd 2, then `execvp(argv[0], argv)`
- In parent: read both pipes into buffers, `waitpid()` for exit status
- Build a Lua table with `code`, `stdout`, `stderr` fields and push onto stack
- Depends on #04 (argv parsing) to tokenize the command string into argv[]
## Error handling
- Command not found → set `code` to an error value, `stderr` to error message
- Permission denied → same
- `fork()` failure → raise a Lua error
## Open questions
- New file (`lcmd.c` / `lcmd.h`) or add to an existing lib?
- Signal handling during child execution
- Binary output — return raw string bytes as-is?
- Set `__tostring` metamethod on result table?