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wait (system call) In computer operating systems, a process (or task) may wait for another process to complete its execution. In most systems, a parent process can create an independently executing child process. The parent process may then issue a wait system call, which suspends the execution of the parent process while the child executes.
Exit status. In computing, the exit status (also exit code or exit value) of a terminated process is an integer number that is made available to its parent process (or caller). In DOS, this may be referred to as an errorlevel. When computer programs are executed, the operating system creates an abstract entity called a process in which the book ...
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.
wait [n] where n is the pid or job ID of a currently executing background process (job). If n is not given, the command waits until all jobs known to the invoking shell have terminated. wait normally returns the exit status of the last job which terminated. It may also return 127 in the event that n specifies a non-existent job or zero if there ...
The underlying program is no longer executing, but the process remains in the process table as a zombie process until its parent process calls the wait system call to read its exit status, at which point the process is removed from the process table, finally ending the process's lifetime.
Child process. A child process in computing is a process created by another process (the parent process). 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 ...
They are a limited form of inter-process communication (IPC), typically used in Unix, Unix-like, and other POSIX -compliant operating systems. A signal is an asynchronous notification sent to a process or to a specific thread within the same process to notify it of an event. Common uses of signals are to interrupt, suspend, terminate or kill a ...
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 ...