2 * Copyright (c) 2000 Silicon Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
4 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
5 * under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as
6 * published by the Free Software Foundation.
8 * This program is distributed in the hope that it would be useful, but
9 * WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
10 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
12 * Further, this software is distributed without any warranty that it is
13 * free of the rightful claim of any third person regarding infringement
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15 * otherwise, applies only to this software file. Patent licenses, if
16 * any, provided herein do not apply to combinations of this program with
17 * other software, or any other product whatsoever.
19 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
20 * with this program; if not, write the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
21 * Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston MA 02111-1307, USA.
23 * Contact information: Silicon Graphics, Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy,
24 * Mountain View, CA 94043, or:
28 * For further information regarding this notice, see:
30 * http://oss.sgi.com/projects/GenInfo/NoticeExplan/
35 #define FORKER_MAX_PIDS 4098
37 extern int Forker_pids[FORKER_MAX_PIDS]; /* holds pids of forked processes */
38 extern int Forker_npids; /* number of entries in Forker_pids */
41 * This function will fork and the parent will exit zero and
42 * the child will return. This will orphan the returning process
43 * putting it in the background.
45 int background( char * );
48 * Forker will fork ncopies-1 copies of self.
50 * arg 1: Number of copies of the process to be running after return.
51 * This value minus one is the number of forks performed.
52 * arg 2: mode: 0 - all children are first generation descendents.
53 * 1 - each subsequent child is a descendent of another
54 * descendent, resulting in only one direct descendent of the
55 * parent and each other child is a child of another child in
56 * relation to the parent.
57 * arg 3: prefix: string to preceed any error messages. A value of NULL
58 * results in no error messages on failure.
59 * returns: returns to parent the number of children forked.
61 int forker( int , int , char * );
63 #endif /* _FORKER_H_ */