How Can a Parent and Child Process Communicate?
Communication between a parent and child process is essential for the successful execution of any program. It allows the parent process to control the flow of the program, while also allowing the child process to provide feedback on its progress. There are several ways in which a parent and child process can communicate, including pipes, signals, shared memory, and sockets.
Pipes
Pipes are one of the most common methods of communication between a parent and child process. A pipe is essentially a buffer that stores data sent from one process to another. The parent process can write data to the pipe, which is then read by the child process. This allows for two-way communication between the processes.
Signals
Signals are another way for a parent and child process to communicate. Signals are messages sent from one process to another that indicate an event has occurred or that some action needs to be taken. For example, a signal could be sent from the parent process to the child process indicating that it should terminate itself. Signals can also be used to synchronize processes so that they execute certain tasks at specific times.
Shared Memory
Shared memory is another method of communication between a parent and child process. Shared memory allows both processes to access the same block of memory, allowing them to exchange data without having to copy it back and forth between them. This makes it ideal for situations where large amounts of data need to be exchanged quickly.
Sockets
Sockets are another way for a parent and child process to communicate with each other. Sockets allow two processes on different computers (or even different networks) to communicate with each other over a network connection. This makes it possible for processes running on different machines to interact with each other in real time.