How to get return value from CHILD PROCESS?

Question

Program calculates sum of numbers from 1 to N.. Child process calculates sum of EVEN numbers. Parent process calculates sum of odd numbers. I want to get the return value of child process in parent process. How do i do that

#include<stdio.h>
#include<errno.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
#include<fcntl.h>

int main()
{
    int N;
    int id;
    int fd_result;;

    printf("Enter N till which you want the sum: \n");
    scanf("%d",&N);
    if ((fd_result=creat("result", 600))== -1)
    {
        perror("Error creating file");
        exit(1);
    }
    if ((fd_result=open("result",O_TRUNC | O_RDWR)) == -1)
    {
        perror("Error Opening file");
        exit(1);
    }
    if ((id=fork())<0)
    {
        perror("Error occurred forking....!");
        exit(errno);
    }
    if (id == 0)
    {
        int i;
        int sum=0;
        for (i=0;i<=N;i=i+2)
            sum+=i;
        printf("Child sum: %d",sum);
        if (write(fd_result,&sum,sizeof(int))==-1) perror("Error writing to file");
        _exit(0);
    }


    if (id > 0)
    {
        int i;
        int sum=0;
        int sum_odd;
        for (i=1;i<=N;i=i+2)
            sum+=i;
        lseek(fd_result,0,SEEK_SET);
        read(fd_result,&sum_odd,sizeof(int));
        printf("\nThe sum is: %d",sum+(int)sum_odd);
    }

    close(fd_result);
    return 0;
}

Pls tell me how do I get the return value of child process?

Answer 1

What you are looking for is wait() or waitpid().