Execing Processes in Wolfram Language

Here’s the translation of the Go code to Wolfram Language (Mathematica), formatted in Markdown suitable for Hugo:

Our example will demonstrate how to execute an external process, completely replacing the current process. In Wolfram Language, we’ll use the Run function, which is similar to the classic exec function in Unix-like systems.

(* For our example, we'll execute the "ls" command. *)
command = "ls";

(* We'll give "ls" a few common arguments. *)
args = {"-a", "-l", "-h"};

(* Construct the full command string *)
fullCommand = command <> " " <> StringRiffle[args, " "];

(* Here's the actual Run call. If this call is successful,
   the execution of our process will end here and be replaced
   by the "ls -a -l -h" process. The Run function returns 
   the exit code of the executed command. *)
exitCode = Run[fullCommand];

(* Check if the command executed successfully *)
If[exitCode != 0,
  Print["Error: Command execution failed with exit code ", exitCode],
  (* If exitCode is 0, the command executed successfully,
     and its output would have been printed to the console *)
]

When we run our program, it will be replaced by the ls command, and we’ll see output similar to this:

total 16
drwxr-xr-x  4 user 136B Oct 3 16:29 .
drwxr-xr-x 91 user 3.0K Oct 3 12:50 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 user 1.3K Oct 3 16:28 execing-processes.nb

Note that Wolfram Language doesn’t offer a direct equivalent to Unix’s fork function. However, the Run function, along with other built-in functions for running external processes (like RunProcess for more control), covers most use cases for executing external commands.

In Wolfram Language, we don’t need to explicitly look up the path of the executable or set the environment variables, as these are handled automatically by the Run function. If you need more control over these aspects, you can use the more advanced RunProcess function.

Remember that when using Run, the external command replaces the current Mathematica kernel process, so any code after the Run command will not be executed unless the external command fails to start.