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From: ralfi@pemcom.pem-stuttgart.de (Ralf U. Holighaus)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: vfork()
Keywords: vfork()
Message-ID: <1135@pemcom.pem-stuttgart.de>
Date: 22 Mar 91 09:02:42 GMT
References: <8372@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <15533@smoke.brl.mil>
Organization: PEM GmbH, Stuttgart
Lines: 25

gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:

>In article <8372@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> stan@Dixie.Com (Stan Brown) writes:
>>	Could someone tell me how this is different from fork()

>Just replace it with fork().  If that doesn't work, the application
>is going to need some serious redesign anyway.

That is PARTLY right. vfork differs from fork in a way that it doesn't
copy the complete process data range, so the child of a vfork can ONLY
do an exec, execlp etc. 

Actually with vfork, the sun process shares text and data with the father
process, so the only thing possible after a vfork is either an exit by
the father or an exec by the son. Any other use will cause garbage, be-
cause neither of the two processes has a data rang for it's own.

Regards 

Ralf.
-- 
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