Process Creation and Control

Computer Architecture & OS Lab

Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

CSE, IIT KGP

 Process
• A process is a program in execution
• Contents:
– Process control block
• Process identification
• Process state information
• Process control information
– User stack
– Private user address space (program, data)
– Shared address space

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 Process State Transitions

User
Created
Running
Trap / Intr Schedule
Memory? No memory?
Return
Kernel Preempt Ready Ready
Running in memory swapped
Swap in/out
Wakeup Wakeup
Sleep
Terminated Asleep Asleep
in memory Swap out swapped

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 How to create a new process?
• The fork() system call
– It creates a new process as a child
process of the calling process (parent)
– Both have similar code segments
– The child gets a copy of the parents data
segment at the time of forking

• How can the child realize that it is the child and not
the parent?
• How can we make the child and parent do different
things?

CSE, IIT KGP

 The return value of fork()
• fork() returns a value to both parent
and child
– The parent receives the process id of the
child
– The child receives 0 (zero)
Key idea:
if (fork() == 0)
{ /* I am the child process */ }
else
{ /* I am the parent process */ }
CSE, IIT KGP
 The first program: fork1.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/ipc.h>
main( )
{
if (fork( ) == 0) { /* Child */
while (1) { for (i=0; i<100000; i++) ;
printf("\t\t\t Child executing\n ");
}
}
else { /* Parent */
while (1) { for (i=0; i<100000; i++) ;
printf("Parent executing\n"); }
}
}

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 Waiting for child termination

• The parent process can wait for the

child process to terminate using the
call:
waitpid( pid, NULL, 0 )

-- where pid is the identifier of the child

process (returned by fork( ))
-- what are the other two parameters?

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 The second program: fork2.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/ipc.h>
main()
{
int i, x = 10, pid1, pid2 ;
printf("Before forking, the value of x is %d\n", x);

if ( ( pid1 = fork( ) ) == 0) { /* First child process */

for (i=0 ; i < 5; i++) {
printf("\t\t\t At first child: x= %d\n", x);
x= x+10; sleep(1) ; /* Sleep for 1 second */
}
}

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 The second program: fork2.c
else { /* Parent process */

if ( ( pid2 = fork( ) ) == 0) { /* Second child */

for (i=0 ; i < 5; i++) {
printf("\t\t\t\t\t\t At second child: x= %d\n", x);
x= x+20; sleep(1) ; /* Sleep for 1 second */
}
}
else { /* Parent process */
waitpid(pid1,NULL,0);
waitpid(pid2,NULL,0);
printf("Both children terminated\n");
}
}}

CSE, IIT KGP

 Points to ponder: fork3.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/ipc.h>
main( )
{
int x=0, pid;
printf("Hello!");

if ( ( pid = fork() ) == 0) { /* Child */

printf("\nChild:\t Address of x: %x\t
Value of x: %d \n", &x, x);
x = 20;
printf("Child:\t Address of x: %x\t
Value of x: %d \n", &x, x);
}

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 Points to ponder
else { /* Parent */
waitpid(pid, NULL, 0);
printf("\nParent:\t Address of x: %x\t
Value of x: %d \n", &x, x);
x = 10;
printf("Parent:\t Address of x: %x\t
Value of x: %d \n", &x, x);

}
}

• Why is Hello! printed twice?

• Though the address of x is the same in the parent and in
the child, they contain different values. Hows this possible?

CSE, IIT KGP

 Shared Memory

Computer Architecture & OS Lab

Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

CSE, IIT KGP

 Shared Memory System Calls
• Creation:
int shmid = shmget( IPC_PRIVATE,
<no of bytes>, 0777|IPC_CREAT )
– This call creates the shared memory segment
and returns its identifier
• Attach:
char * shmat( shmid, 0, 0 )
– This call attaches the shared memory segment
with the logical address space of the calling
process and returns the logical address

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 Using shared memory: shm.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/ipc.h>
#include <sys/shm.h>

main()
{
int shmid, *a, *b, i;

/* Acquire a shared array of 2 integers */

shmid = shmget( IPC_PRIVATE,
2*sizeof(int), 0777|IPC_CREAT);

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 Using shared memory: shm.c
if ((pid = fork()) == 0) { /* Child */
b = (int *) shmat( shmid, 0, 0 ); /* Attach to child */
for( i=0; i< 10; i++) {
sleep(1);
printf("\t\t\t Child reads: %d,%d\n",b[0],b[1]);
} }
else { /* Parent */
a = (int *) shmat( shmid, 0, 0 ); /* Attach to parent */
a[0] = 0; a[1] = 1;
for( i=0; i< 10; i++) {
sleep(1); a[0] = a[0] + a[1]; a[1] = a[0] + a[1];
printf("Parent writes: %d,%d\n",a[0],a[1]);
}
waitpid( pid );
}}
CSE, IIT KGP
 Assignment: Concurrent Mergesort
Write a program for mergesort that works as follows.
– The given set of integers is stored in shared memory.
– If the number of integers is less than 20, then the
process sorts the integers using bubble-sort.
– Otherwise, it recursively creates one child process for
sorting the left half and another child process for sorting
the right half.
– After both children terminate, the parent merges the left
and right halves.
– Note that the child processes should in turn follow the
same procedure and create children of their own if
needed.
Your program should read a list of integers (and nothing
else). The first integer in the list will indicate the number of
integers to be read.
CSE, IIT KGP