Add 'command' and 'command-lines'. Fix args freeing in Perl bindings.

[libguestfs.git] / guestfish-actions.pod

diff --git a/guestfish-actions.pod b/guestfish-actions.pod
index 50ecfec..2d0a045 100644 (file)
--- a/guestfish-actions.pod
+++ b/guestfish-actions.pod
@@ -214,6 +214,38 @@ Only numeric uid and gid are supported.  If you want to use
 names, you will need to locate and parse the password file
 yourself (Augeas support makes this relatively easy).
 
+=head2 command
+
+ command arguments,...
+
+This calls runs a command from the guest filesystem.  The
+filesystem must be mounted, and must contain a compatible
+operating system (ie. something Linux, with the same
+or compatible processor architecture).
+
+The single parameter is an argv-style list of arguments.
+The first element is the name of the program to run.
+Subsequent elements are parameters.  The list must be
+non-empty (ie. must contain a program name).
+
+The C<$PATH> environment variable will contain at least
+C</usr/bin> and C</bin>.  If you require a program from
+another location, you should provide the full path in the
+first parameter.
+
+Shared libraries and data files required by the program
+must be available on filesystems which are mounted in the
+correct places.  It is the caller's responsibility to ensure
+all filesystems that are needed are mounted at the right
+locations.
+
+=head2 command-lines
+
+ command-lines arguments,...
+
+This is the same as C<command>, but splits the
+result into a list of lines.
+
 =head2 config
 
  config qemuparam qemuvalue
@@ -236,6 +268,18 @@ This returns C<true> if and only if there is a file, directory
 
 See also C<is_file>, C<is_dir>, C<stat>.
 
+=head2 file
+
+ file path
+
+This call uses the standard L<file(1)> command to determine
+the type or contents of the file.  This also works on devices,
+for example to find out whether a partition contains a filesystem.
+
+The exact command which runs is C<file -bsL path>.  Note in
+particular that the filename is not prepended to the output
+(the C<-b> option).
+
 =head2 get-autosync
 
  get-autosync