Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!know!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!daver!tscs!tct!chip From: chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: fork() vs vfork() and COW Message-ID: <2699C83E.97A@tct.uucp> Date: 10 Jul 90 12:21:17 GMT References: <3830012@hpcupt1.HP.COM> <58053@bbn.BBN.COM> <476@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> Organization: ComDev/TCT, Sarasota, FL Lines: 16 According to david@eng.sun.com (Big Ed's Gas Farm): >>While I can't claim the fork-exec with COW >>is faster than vfork-exec, I claim that it is not significantly slower in >>most cases... > >I timed a simple test program on a Sun 4/60 running SunOS 4.1 (has COW): >fork() seems to take twice as long as vfork() for a small process. Thanks for the test. However, there are questions to be answered: How much memory is available? What are the static and dynamic sizes of the test program? Why doesn't the test program wait(), while most real programs do? (Resource usage will go up if many children are live simultaneously.) -- Chip Salzenberg at ComDev/TCT ,