Why does execl exit the process?

Question

linux

I fork the process, in it I run another program with the help of execl. I do this in a loop:

pid_t pid = fork();
if (pid == 0) {
    while(1) {
        execl(...);
    }
}

It would seem that after the completion of the execution of execl(), the loop should restart execl(), but that was not the case. It just terminates the forked process. If I execute via system(), then everything works fine, but I need it via execl().
Why is this happening?

Answer 1

You need to do `fork()` first, and then `execl()` inside the new process.