A child process in computing is a process created by another process (the parent process). This technique pertains to multitasking operating systems, and is sometimes called a subprocess or traditionally a subtask.

There are two major procedures for creating a child process: the fork system call (preferred in Unix-like systems and the POSIX standard) and the spawn (preferred in the modern (NT) kernel of Microsoft Windows, as well as in some historical operating systems).

History

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Child processes date to the late 1960s, with an early form in later revisions of the Multiprogramming with a Fixed number of Tasks Version II (MFT-II) form of the IBM OS/360 operating system, which introduced sub-tasking (see task). The current form in Unix draws on Multics (1969), while the Windows NT form draws on OpenVMS (1978), from RSX-11 (1972).

Children created by fork

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A child process inherits most of its attributes, such as file descriptors, from its parent. In Unix, a child process is typically created as a copy of the parent, using the fork system call. The child process can then overlay itself with a different program (using exec) as required.[1]

Each process may create many child processes but will have at most one parent process; if a process does not have a parent this usually indicates that it was created directly by the kernel. In some systems, including Linux-based systems, the very first process (called init) is started by the kernel at booting time and never terminates (see Linux startup process); other parentless processes may be launched to carry out various daemon tasks in userspace. Another way for a process to end up without a parent is if its parent dies, leaving an orphan process; but in this case it will shortly be adopted by init.

The SIGCHLD signal is sent to the parent of a child process when it exits, is interrupted, or resumes after being interrupted. By default the signal is simply ignored.[2]

Children created by spawn

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End of life

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When a child process terminates, some information is returned to the parent process.

When a child process terminates before the parent has called wait, the kernel retains some information about the process, such as its exit status, to enable its parent to call wait later.[3] Because the child is still consuming system resources but not executing it is known as a zombie process. The wait system call is commonly invoked in the SIGCHLD handler.

POSIX.1-2001 allows a parent process to elect for the kernel to automatically reap child processes that terminate by explicitly setting the disposition of SIGCHLD to SIG_IGN (although ignore is the default, automatic reaping only occurs if the disposition is set to ignore explicitly[4]), or by setting the SA_NOCLDWAIT flag for the SIGCHLD signal. Linux 2.6 kernels adhere to this behavior, and FreeBSD supports both of these methods since version 5.0.[5] However, because of historical differences between System V and BSD behaviors with regard to ignoring SIGCHLD, calling wait remains the most portable paradigm for cleaning up after forked child processes.[6]

See also

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  • exit
  • pstree, for UNIX to find the child process (pstree PID, where PID is the process id of the process).

References

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  1. ^ This article is based on material taken from Child+process at the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
  2. ^ signal.h – Base Definitions Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
  3. ^ wait(2): wait for process to change state – Linux Programmer's Manual – System Calls
  4. ^ "The Linux kernel: Signals". Win.tue.nl. Retrieved 2014-04-30.
  5. ^ [1] Archived September 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ sigaction(2): examine and change a signal action – Linux Programmer's Manual – System Calls
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