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Date:      Thu, 25 Apr 2002 13:15:53 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Bsd Neophyte <bsdneophyte@yahoo.com>
To:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   what are parent and child processes all about?
Message-ID:  <20020425201553.43809.qmail@web20106.mail.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <004b01c1ec11$775f54a0$32040101@hume>

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I don't follow what these are... 

this is what my text says...

"When a process is started, a duplicate of that process is created.  This
new process is called the child and the process that created it is called
the parent.  The child process then replaces the copy for the code the
parent process created with the code the child process is supposted to
execute."

The last sentance confuses me the most.  Actually the entire thing
confsues me.  Why is a child process started anyways?  Why does the parent
process spawn a child process in the first place?  And what's all this
code copy stuff all about?

The next paragraph states...

"While the command is executing, the shell waits until the child process
has completed.  After is completes, the parent process terminates the
child process, and a prompt is displated, ready for a new command"

Why does this happen?  I guess it goes back to my confusion about why the
child process is created in the first place.

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