0

What is a pid and how is it created? I understand that it comes from the parent process, and children are created. But what is their purpose and why are process identifiers useful?

Dave Jackson
  • 1
  • 1
    Possible duplicate of [What is a .pid file and what does it contain?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8296170/what-is-a-pid-file-and-what-does-it-contain) – Zico Apr 12 '18 at 08:53

1 Answers1

0

Processes that are executed in most systems can do so concurrently because your computer's system will have more than more core that can be used simultaneously (known as multi-core or multi-processor). When a program is executed, a process (called the parent) may create two new processes (called children). Imagine a tree-like structure where the parent is at the head, with one child on the left and one child on the right.

Each of these processes is identified by a unique integer value, known as it's process identifier (pid). This pid can be used to access the specific process in the kernel.Since processes can be dynamically created and destroyed, the pid serves as an index by which to find the process once it is created.

J.S.
  • 19
  • 3