boost::process: executable extension is required to create a process.

[jpo38 <jean.porcherot@…>]

The following code does not assert under Windows:

int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
    try
    {
        boost::process::child p( "cmd" );
        p.terminate();
    }
    catch (...)
    {
        assert( false );
    }

    try
    {
        boost::process::child p( "cmd.exe" );
        p.terminate();
    }
    catch (...)
    {
        assert( false );
    }
    
    return 0;
}

So, apparently, .exe does not need to be specified.

However, the following code does assert when .exe is not specified:

int main( int argc, char* argv[] )
{
    if ( argc == 1 )
    {
        std::string exe = argv[0];
        try
        {
            std::string exeNoExt = exe.substr(0, exe.find_last_of("."));
            boost::process::child p( exeNoExt, "foo" );
            p.terminate();
        }
        catch (...)
        {
            assert( false ); // asserts
        }

        try
        {
            boost::process::child p( exe, "foo" );
            p.terminate();
        }
        catch (...)
        {
            assert( false ); // does not assert
        }
    }

boost::process::child p( exeNoExt, "foo" ); should work and executable extention should be silently added, like it is for cmd.

Note that boost::process::search_path( "myprg" ) returns "myprg.exe" if found, so here, extension is added correctly. But it's unsafe to systematically call this function priori to creating a child as it only works with program names (calling it with "Myfolder/myprg" returns "").