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clinuxwaitwaitpid

Checking if wait() failed

In order to know if wait() has worked, will it be correct to check it like the following? In theory, if wait() does not fail, should return to the parent process the ended child pid, otherwise parent pid will be 1, right? 

switch (process = fork())
{
    case -1:
        // Fork fail
        perror("Fork failed");
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);

    case 0:
        //Child process
        HERE CODE DOES SOMETHING
        exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
    default:
        //Parent process 
        pid=wait(&status);

        if(pid==1){
            perror("Wait failed");
        }else{
        exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
        }
}
Solution

  • Quoting man 2 wait:

    RETURN VALUE

    wait(): on success, returns the process ID of the terminated child; on error, -1 is returned.

    So to check if wait(2) failed, this should be enough:

    if (wait(&status) == -1) {
    perror("wait failed");
    exit(1);
}