[Qt-interest] Is it safe to fork() after an app.exec()

[Will Rutherdale (rutherw)]

Hi.

In writing a console application using QCoreApplication, someone came up
with the idea of creating a self-starting program that processes
command-line arguments, then decides whether it wants to start itself as
a server in the background.  It is already running a method in
QCoreApplication, but depending on a certain argument may decide to
fork.  The child process on the other side of the fork() call then
invokes QCoreApplication::exec().  From that point on you have a server
process listening for commands from dbus.

My question:  is this safe to do?  Testing so far seems to indicate that
it runs without a hitch.  However, without knowing the sources in Qt in
depth, I wonder if the code might ever get confused by the fact that the
pid has changed.

If there is a problem, then I could just start this program out of a
shell using ampersand notation.  (Or possibly fork() first?)

I appreciate any advice on this matter.

-Will