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fork (system call) In computing, particularly in the context of the Unix operating system and its workalikes, fork is an operation whereby a process creates a copy of itself. It is an interface which is required for compliance with the POSIX and Single UNIX Specification standards. It is usually implemented as a C standard library wrapper to ...
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 ...
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.
Copy-on-write finds its main use in operating systems, sharing the physical memory of computers running multiple processes, in the implementation of the fork() system call. Typically, the new process does not modify any memory and immediately executes a new process, replacing the address space entirely.
System call. A high-level overview of the Linux kernel's system call interface, which handles communication between its various components and the userspace. In computing, a system call (commonly abbreviated to syscall) is the programmatic way in which a computer program requests a service from the operating system [a] on which it is executed.
The wait system call is commonly invoked in the SIGCHLD handler. POSIX.1-2001 allows a parent process to elect for the kernel to automatically reap child processes that terminate by explicitly setting the disposition of SIGCHLD to SIG_IGN (although ignore is the default, automatic reaping only occurs if the disposition is set to ignore ...
The process that invoked fork is the parent process and the newly created process is the child process. Every process (except process 0) has one parent process, but can have many child processes. The operating system kernel identifies each process by its process identifier. Process 0 is a special process that is created when the system boots ...
exec (system call) In computing, exec is a functionality of an operating system that runs an executable file in the context of an already existing process, replacing the previous executable. This act is also referred to as an overlay. It is especially important in Unix-like systems, although it also exists elsewhere.