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fork() is the name of the system call that the parent process uses to "divide" itself ("fork") into two identical processes. After calling fork(), the created child process is an exact copy of the parent except for the return value of the fork() call. This includes open files, register state, and all memory allocations, which includes the ...
This technique pertains to multitasking operating systems, and is sometimes called a subprocess or traditionally a subtask. There are two major procedures for creating a child process: the fork system call (preferred in Unix-like systems and the POSIX standard) and the spawn (preferred in the modern (NT) kernel of Microsoft Windows , as well as ...
The traditional Unix system does not have the functionality to create a new process running a new executable program in one step, which explains the importance of exec for Unix programming. Other systems may use spawn as the main tool for running executables. Its result is equivalent to the fork–exec sequence of Unix-like
In multitasking operating systems, processes (running programs) need a way to create new processes, e.g. to run other programs. Fork and its variants are typically the only way of doing so in Unix-like systems. For a process to start the execution of a different program, it first forks to create a copy of itself.
The word "fork" has been used to mean "to divide in branches, go separate ways" as early as the 14th century. [2] In the software environment, the word evokes the fork system call, which causes a running process to split itself into two (almost) identical copies that (typically) diverge to perform different tasks.
The DOS/Windows spawn functions are inspired by Unix functions fork and exec; however, as these operating systems do not support fork, [2] the spawn function was supplied as a replacement for the fork-exec combination. However, the spawn function, although it deals adequately with the most common use cases, lacks the full power of fork-exec ...
The first, Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, was intended for IA-64 systems; as IA-64 usage declined on workstations in favor of AMD's x86-64 architecture, the Itanium edition was discontinued in January 2005. [57] A new 64-bit edition supporting the x86-64 architecture, called Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, was released in April 2005. [58]
HFS, and the original Apple Macintosh file system MFS, allowed a file system object to have two kinds of forks: a data fork and a resource fork. The resource fork was designed to store non-compiled data that would be used by the system's graphical user interface (GUI), such as localizable text strings, a file's icon to be used by the Finder or ...