NAME
fork
—
create a new process
SYNOPSIS
#include
<unistd.h>
pid_t
fork
(void);
DESCRIPTION
fork
()
causes creation of a new process. The new process (child process) is an
exact copy of the calling process (parent process) except for the
following:
- The child process has a unique process ID.
- The child process has a different parent process ID (i.e., the process ID of the parent process).
- The child process has its own copy of the parent's descriptors. These descriptors reference the same underlying objects, so that, for instance, file pointers in file objects are shared between the child and the parent, so that an lseek(2) on a descriptor in the child process can affect a subsequent read or write by the parent. This descriptor copying is also used by the shell to establish standard input and output for newly created processes as well as to set up pipes.
- The child processes resource utilizations are set to 0; see setrlimit(2).
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, fork
() returns
a value of 0 to the child process and returns the process ID of the child
process to the parent process. Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned to the
parent process, no child process is created, and the global variable
errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
fork
() will fail and no child process will
be created if:
- [
EAGAIN
] - The system-imposed limit on the total number of processes under execution would be exceeded. This limit is configuration-dependent.
- [
EAGAIN
] - The system-imposed limit
MAXUPRC
(⟨sys/param.h⟩) on the total number of processes under execution by a single user would be exceeded. - [
ENOMEM
] - There is insufficient swap space for the new process.
LEGACY SYNOPSIS
#include
<sys/types.h>
#include
<unistd.h>
The include file
<sys/types.h>
is
necessary.
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
A fork
() function call appeared in
Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
CAVEATS
There are limits to what you can do in the child process. To be
totally safe you should restrict yourself to only executing async-signal
safe operations until such time as one of the exec functions is called. All
APIs, including global data symbols, in any framework or library should be
assumed to be unsafe after a fork
() unless
explicitly documented to be safe or async-signal safe. If you need to use
these frameworks in the child process, you must exec. In this situation it
is reasonable to exec yourself.