Interprocess Communications in Linux®: The Nooks & Crannies

Chapter 3. Using Processes

Introduction

Processes are at the very heart of the operating system. As we have seen, all but a very few special processes are generated by the fork system call. If successful, the fork system call produces a child process that continues its execution at the point of its invocation in the parent process. In this chapter, we explore the generation and use of child processes in detail. In Chapter 11, “Threads,” the creation of threads will be discussed.

The fork System Call Revisited

The fork system call is unique in that while it is called once, it returns twice—to the child and to the parent processes. As noted in Chapter ...