On Fri, Sep 22, 2006 at 07:02:06AM -0700, Brian D. McGrew wrote: > Morning all, > > Using FC3 life is good. I compile up my code on FC5 with gcc-4.1.1 and > all of a sudden the system() call is broken. > > The code: > > int num_proc = system("cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -c processor >> /dev/null 2>&!"); 2>&! ? Are you sure you don't ignore SIGCHLD? If SIGCHLD is SIG_IGN, then -1 from system would be expected return value. You haven't provided self-contained testcase, so it is hard to guess... Jakub