Thread: fork behavior

Running the following code:

Code:

int run_execve ( int cid ); 

int so_far = 0; 
int MAX_PROCS = 1000;  /* create this many processes */

int main(void) {
   int cid;
   
   printf ( "C\n" );
   while ( so_far < MAX_PROCS ) {
      /* attempt to run an executable */ 
      cid = fork();
      run_execve ( cid );
      printf ( "A\n" );
      so_far++;
   }
}

int run_execve ( int cid ) {
   if ( cid == 0 ) {
      exit ( -1 );
   } 
}

I would expect to see a single C in the output, and 1000 A's. Instead, I'm getting 72 C's and 3485 A's. This behavior makes no sense to me. Eventually, I plan to call execve from within the run_execve method, but do to the current problems, I've cut it out until I can get fork under control.