.\" Copyright (C) 1995, Thomas K. Dyas <tdyas@eden.rutgers.edu>
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.\" Created   Sat Aug 21 1995     Thomas K. Dyas <tdyas@eden.rutgers.edu>
.\"
.\" typo corrected, aeb, 950825
.\" added layout change from joey, 960722
.\" changed prototype, documented 0xffffffff, aeb, 030101
.\" Modified 2004-11-03 patch from Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
.\"
.TH PERSONALITY 2 2003-01-01 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
personality \- set the process execution domain
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B #include <sys/personality.h>
.sp
.BI "int personality(unsigned long " persona );
.SH DESCRIPTION
Linux supports different execution domains, or personalities, for each
process.
Among other things, execution domains tell Linux how to map
signal numbers into signal actions.
The execution domain system allows
Linux to provide limited support for binaries compiled under other
UNIX-like operating systems.

This function will return the current
.BR personality ()
when
.I persona
equals 0xffffffff.
Otherwise, it will make the execution domain
referenced by
.I persona
the new execution domain of the calling process.
.SH RETURN VALUE
On success, the previous
.I persona
is returned.
On error, \-1 is returned, and
.I errno
is set appropriately.
.SH ERRORS
.TP
.B EINVAL
The kernel was unable to change the personality.
.SH CONFORMING TO
.BR personality ()
is Linux-specific and should not be used in programs intended to
be portable.
.SH COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.53 of the Linux
.I man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
\%http://www.kernel.org/doc/man\-pages/.
