Need help with fork()

**Jenkowe** · 08-17-2005

Hi all,

This looks like the place for a noob like me to recieve some guidance from the seasoned C vets

It's been a loooong time since I used C (or did any programming for that matter..) and I'm required to write a C program for school which uses fork().

The general idea is to write a simple program which spawns a child process which keeps writing a character while the parent process also keeps writing a character to observe what sort of display the program produces. The problem is I have no idea where to start!? Alot of the examples of code I have found look very cryptic and it would be really nice to see some more basic examples..

Can anyone offer any advice or useful resources to aid me in my task?

Thanks.

**Lateralus** · 08-17-2005

The following shows a basic way I have used it. Any code within the if block is the child process. It is good to take in multiple connections in a client/server app.

Code:

pid_t child;

.......


if ( (child = fork() ) == 0) {
/************
/*This is the child process
/*
/***********/
}

**Deckard** · 08-17-2005

fork() returns the process identifier of the child to the parent and zero to the child itself. fork() will return -1 if an error occurs, which is always good to know about. Call fork() and test the return value to decide what character the process should display. Be sure to handle error conditions.

Come on back if you're still stuck and post the code you've written so far.

**nkhambal** · 08-17-2005

May be this will help

A fork() Primer

Thanks,

**Jenkowe** · 08-18-2005

Thanks alot for your replies guys.

I'll have a crack at it and let you know how I went..

**Jenkowe** · 08-22-2005

Ok,

So I've modified the example code nkhambal posted for my own selfish purposes

.

It is as follows:

Code:

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

main()
{
    pid_t pid;
    int rv;

    while(1){
      switch(pid=fork()) {
        case -1:
            perror("fork");  /* something went wrong */
            exit(1);         /* parent exits */

        case 0:
	    printf("C");
       
        default:
            printf("P");
      }
    }
}

I suspect this is not the tidiest way of doing things and am very open to any suggestions and criticisms anyone may have.

Thanks

**Salem** · 08-23-2005

Well it's a good way of hosing your machine I suppose.
Not to mention the lack of break statements in your cases.

**jim mcnamara** · 08-23-2005

The while(1) statement will create an endless stream of new processes which will crash your box.

each block in a switch() statement usually needs a break; at the end of it.

**Jenkowe** · 08-23-2005

Ok so I've added break; at the end of each block.

Can you please suggest an alternative to the while(1) statement? Perhaps a 'for' statement?

**Salem** · 08-24-2005

Why does it need any kind of infinite loop at all?

**nkhambal** · 08-24-2005

Originally Posted by Salem

Why does it need any kind of infinite loop at all?

I think because as per OP he needs to write a program to create processes and write some stuff in the child process and write some stuff in parent.

But you need to make sure that once your job of writing a character in child process is complete, you need to exit the child process with exit(0) which means "exit with success".

Code:

for (;;) {
      switch(pid=fork()) {
        case -1:
            perror("fork");  /* something went wrong */
            exit(1);         /* parent exits */

        case 0:
	    printf("C");
            exit(0);  /*Important to exit here */
       
        default:
            printf("P");
      }
    }

This way, you will not hose your machine by flooding it with processes which you are not going to use eventually. If you don't, then they will be left int hanging state ("Zombies") after parent exits.

**Salem** · 08-24-2005

I think you're going to get zombies anyway - where are the wait() calls which get the exit status of a child?

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