Cocoa® Programming

Chapter 24. Subprocesses and Threads

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Choosing Between Subprocesses and Threads

• Using the NSTask Class

• Using the NSThread Class

• Locking

• Threading Issues

Each program running on Mac OS X uses an underlying Unix process (sometimes also called a task). Mac OS X, like most operating systems, offers facilities for launching and controlling other programs. The NSWorkspace class offers facilities to launch another GUI application. Chapter 22, “Integrating with the Operating System,” covers the NSWorkspace class.

For launching and controlling command-line tools or faceless programs, such as daemons (servers), Cocoa also offers the NSTask class. This class offers much more control over the launched process than the NSWorkspace facilities. ...