.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991 Regents of the University of California.
.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
.\" @(#)fork.2 6.6 (Berkeley) %G%
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:
.Bl -bullet -offset indent
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
on a descriptor in the child process can affect a subsequent
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
Upon successful completion,
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
is set to indicate the error.
will fail and no child process will be created if:
The system-imposed limit on the total
number of processes under execution would be exceeded.
This limit is configuration-dependent.
processes under execution by a single user would be exceeded.
There is insufficient swap space for the new process.
function call appeared in
projects / unix-history / blob