Prashanth L.A.
2023-08-07
Warning: fork() is pretty odd, no matter how unusual your routine-calling patterns are.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf("hello world (pid:%d)\n", (int) getpid());
int rc = fork();
if (rc < 0) {
// fork failed; exit
fprintf(stderr, "fork failed\n");
exit(1);
} else if (rc == 0) {
// child (new process)
printf("hello, I am child (pid:%d)\n", (int) getpid());
} else {
// parent goes down this path (original process)
printf("hello, I am parent of %d (pid:%d)\n",
rc, (int) getpid());
}
return 0;
}
prompt> ./p1
hello world (pid:29146)
hello, I am parent of 29147 (pid:29146)
hello, I am child (pid:29147)
prompt>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf("hello world (pid:%d)\n", (int) getpid());
int rc = fork();
if (rc < 0) {
// fork failed; exit
fprintf(stderr, "fork failed\n");
exit(1);
} else if (rc == 0) {
// child (new process)
printf("hello, I am child (pid:%d)\n", (int) getpid());
sleep(1);
} else {
// parent goes down this path (original process)
int wc = wait(NULL);
printf("hello, I am parent of %d (wc:%d) (pid:%d)\n",
rc, wc, (int) getpid());
}
return 0;
}
prompt> ./p2
hello world (pid:29266)
hello, I am child (pid:29267)
hello, I am parent of 29267 (wc:29267) (pid:29266)
prompt>
Output is deterministic
This system call is useful when you want to run a program that is different from the calling program.
Why?
If fork() was strange, exec() is not so normal either.
Given an executable (e.g., wc), and some arguments (e.g., p3.c), it loads code (and static data) from that executable and over-writes its current code segment (and current static data) with it
the heap and stack and other parts of the memory space of the program are re-initialized.
OS simply runs that program, passing in any arguments as the argv of that process
exec does not create a new process
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
printf("hello world (pid:%d)\n", (int) getpid());
int rc = fork();
if (rc < 0) {
// fork failed; exit
fprintf(stderr, "fork failed\n");
exit(1);
} else if (rc == 0) {
// child (new process)
printf("hello, I am child (pid:%d)\n", (int) getpid());
char *myargs[3];
myargs[0] = strdup("wc"); // program: "wc" (word count)
myargs[1] = strdup("p3.c"); // argument: file to count
myargs[2] = NULL; // marks end of array
execvp(myargs[0], myargs); // runs word count
printf("this shouldn't print out");
} else {
// parent goes down this path (original process)
int wc = wait(NULL);
printf("hello, I am parent of %d (wc:%d) (pid:%d)\n",
rc, wc, (int) getpid());
}
return 0;
}
prompt> ./p3
hello world (pid:29383)
hello, I am child (pid:29384)
29 107 1030 p3.c
hello, I am parent of 29384 (wc:29384) (pid:29383)
prompt>
prompt> wc p3.c > newfile.txt
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int rc = fork();
if (rc < 0) {
// fork failed; exit
fprintf(stderr, "fork failed\n");
exit(1);
} else if (rc == 0) {
// child: redirect standard output to a file
close(STDOUT_FILENO);
open("./p4.output", O_CREAT|O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC, S_IRWXU);
// now exec "wc"...
char *myargs[3];
myargs[0] = strdup("wc"); // program: "wc" (word count)
myargs[1] = strdup("p4.c"); // argument: file to count
myargs[2] = NULL; // marks end of array
execvp(myargs[0], myargs); // runs word count
} else {
// parent goes down this path (original process)
int wc = wait(NULL);
assert(wc >= 0);
}
return 0;
}
prompt> ./p4
prompt> cat p4.output
32 109 846 p4.c
prompt>
grep foo file | wc -l