starting a command line app from code

I want to start a command line program (deamon) from my Cocoa app. It
seems there are a lot of ways to do this. I found at least four:

- (void)startDeamon
{
NSString *execPath = @"path/to/executable";
NSString *execName = [execPath lastPathComponent];

// (1) LaunchServices
NSURL *deamonURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:execPath];
LSOpenCFURLRef((CFURLRef)deamonURL, NULL);

// (2) use system()
NSString *command = [execPath stringByAppendingString:@"&"];
system([command fileSystemRepresentation]);

// (3) the unix solution
if ( fork() == 0 ) {
// in child
const char *path = [execPath fileSystemRepresentation];
const char *name = [execName fileSystemRepresentation];
execl(path, name, NULL);
}

// (4) NSTask one liner
[NSTask launchedTaskWithLaunchPath:execPath arguments:[NSArray
array]];
// not sure about 'arguments' here...
}

Can anyone shed some light on the relative merits of these alternatives?
Are there any side effects I should be aware of?

Patrick
---
Hieper Software

w: www.hieper.nl
e: info RemoveThis @hieper.nl

Patrick Machielse wrote:

>I want to start a command line program (deamon)

Do you want to just run a program, or really start a daemon?
They are different. We usually want daemons to stay around
after we leave; we usually want background processes to quit
when we log off.

> // (3) the unix solution
> if ( fork() == 0 ) {
> // in child

Need more work here to keep us around,
if you really want a daemon.

> const char *path = [execPath fileSystemRepresentation];
> const char *name = [execName fileSystemRepresentation];
> execl(path, name, NULL);
> }

And alternative 3b, using the daemon() call:

int daemon(int nochdir, int noclose);