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From: avi@pegasus.UUCP (Avi E. Gross)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Terminology question: What do we call a process before/after an exec()?
Message-ID: <2068@pegasus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 09:14:20 EST
Article-I.D.: pegasus.2068
Posted: Wed Jan 30 09:14:20 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 02:46:12 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft NJ
Lines: 27

When a process does a fork()/exec() (or system()), I am used to using words
like "parent" and "child" to refer to the process depending on what PID was
returned from the fork(). Similarly, I have used "grandparent" and
"grandchild" -- and even "sibling" to refer to other relationships. Some of
the processes I generate easily go 7 generations and more.

I am not aware of any terminology (of an anthromorphic nature) to describe
the state of a process immediately before an exec() or after. It is not
really a parent-child relationship -- it is more like a sex-change operation
or reincarnation. In reality, the born-again process shares many
characteristics of its cognate -- such as open file descriptors and process
table space, but may have a different name and program text.

Can anyone suggest a reasonable (and hopefully humurous :-) set of names that
can be used to talk about these processes? What does one call the result of
several exec's in a row? Does it matter which flavor of exec (execl, execv,
execle, execve, execlp, execvp) was used? Can such a process find out whether
it was the result of an exec from another process, or whether it was the
exec of the original shell (hopefully ksh)?

All kidding aside, I am curious whether other people have felt the need for
a way to refer to several versions of the same process. I have recently been
creating such processes and using terms like "overlayed process" doesn't
excite me.
-- 
-=> Avi E. Gross @ AT&T Information Systems Laboratories (201) 576-6241
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