Unexpected output for simple forking program

[mfr]

Hello, Im a beginner in C and I’ve started learning about system calls and forking. I am forking in a loop but I get unexpected behaviour. My program takes one number and simply forks(), it also prints pids using getppid and pid:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>


int main(int argc, char **argv) {


	int i;
	int n;
	int kids;


	if (argc != 2) {
		fprintf(stderr, "error");
		exit(1);
	}


	kids = strtol(argv[1], NULL, 10);


	for (i = 0; i < kids; i++) {
		n = fork();
		if (n < 0) {
			perror("fork");
			exit(1);
		}
 		printf("pid = %d, ppid = %d, i = %d\n", getpid(), getppid(), i);
        exit(0);
	}


	return 0;
}

when running this program with ANY command line the output is:

$ ./my_program 3

pid = 7824, ppid = 7763, i=0
pid = 7825, ppid = 7824, i=0

My goal is to make sure the children dont fork, only the parent should fork. W Other sources also say to exit the loop in this way, and i cant exit any further up as i want my children to print the pid’s too. I expected 6 lines since I passed in 3, but with any argument I get the same thing. What mistake am I making?

Thank you for your help!

[Salem]

Something like this?

    for (i = 0; i < kids; i++) {
        n = fork();
        if (n < 0) {
            perror("fork");
            exit(1);
        }
        printf("pid = %d, ppid = %d, i = %d\n", getpid(), getppid(), i);
        if ( n == 0 ) {
            exit(0);
        } else {
            wait(NULL);
        }
    }