process execution

[simo_mon]

i ran the following code and got strange results....

  int main(int argc, char *argv[] )
 {
	int i =0;
	
	for(i=0;i<2;i++)
	{
		printf("%d child proc b4 %d\n",i, (int) getpid());

		printf(" parent proc %d\n", (int) getppid());
		fork();

		printf("%d child proc af %d\n\n",i, (int) getpid());
		
	}
	
	
	return EXIT_SUCCESS;
   }

the results i got


0 child proc b4 16544 <-------------
parent proc 16027
0 child proc af 16544

1 child proc b4 16544
parent proc 16027
1 child proc af 16544 <-------------- does this indicate that the fork(); call takes longer
------------------------------------------------- than the loop to output to stdout ??


0 child proc af 16545

1 child proc b4 16545
parent proc 16544 <---------------- does this mean that the parent of this fork is the child
------------------------------------------------ of the first parent
1 child proc af 16546

1 child proc af 16545 <--------------- ?????? and is this that the process somehow calls
------------------------------------------------ the print statement again ??? or stdout ???

1 child proc af 16547


really confused, would appreciate any insight ....

thanks

[Salem]

If you print the result of getpid() and getppid() in a single printf call, then you should be able to draw a family tree.
Also printing the value of i as well would help.

And yes, you have grand-children in this code

[foxman]

If you are confused, then take a look at the man pages. And you'll never see this kind of use of fork in a real program, so you shouldn't care much if the output seem confusing to you. What you'll typically see is

int main()
{
   if (fork() == 0)
   {
      // You are in child process
      // Do something, like calling exec
   }

   else
   {
      // You are in the parent process
   }

   return 0;
}

Now, if you do not understand this kind of program, then you have a problem.

[valaris]

If you are confused, then take a look at the man pages. And you'll never see this kind of use of fork in a real program, so you shouldn't care much if the output seem confusing to you. What you'll typically see is

int main()
{
   if (fork() == 0)
   {
      // You are in child process
      // Do something, like calling exec
   }

   else
   {
      // You are in the parent process
   }

   return 0;
}

Now, if you do not understand this kind of program, then you have a problem.

I dont understand threading in C at all. Do the if and else blocks run concurrently in seperate threads?

[MacGyver]

They run concurrently in separate processes.

[valaris]

oooh ok processes. Any good standard text or tutorials I should look over for c/c++ threading? It's so easy to do in c# i feel like im cheating.

[MacGyver]

For threads, check out pthreads.

[valaris]

Thankyou very much. Can these be used in the *nix and windows world, as well as with C/C++ ?

[MacGyver]

Yes. There should be a Windows version of it that you can download somewhere. Cygwin is also an option for Windows.

[simo_mon]

thanks for the replies !!

and i do understand the fork code above...... and thanks to another post i think i have an understanding of the processes now, i guess the thing that was throwing me was that the without the use of wait() and similar functions that they are running independently of main and the functions i was using ... hence the initial code (above )to try and understand how they run....
basically without the use of the wait()... and similar functions there is no way to control the flow of execution ... its all handled by the os....

thanks again for the insights