On 10/19/06, Topher Fischer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Dr. Mercer's Computer Architecture (CS345) class gave me my only experience with a practical use of forking. We wrote a small UNIX shell, and when the user typed in a command, the program would fork. This creates a new process with its own memory space, file descriptor table, signal handlers, etc. The child process would then exec (man 3 exec) the user's command, which takes over the process that was created by the fork command. If concurrency is the only goal, then threads will usually take care of the problem. However, if you need a completely new process with its own resources, then fork you. I mean, then you fork.
So when the child process finishes with whatever command the user entered does it then have a mechanism for killing itself off to avoid a slower version of a fork bomb? -- Alex Esplin /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
