In my program, each time the user types a message via stdin, the code reads it in, and calls fork() to create a new (child) process. This child process sends data (the user's typed in message) using a server socket.
To end the client process, I would like the user to type "quit". At which point, I would like my code to exit the While(1) loop, wait for all the child processes to finish processing (so leaving behind no orphaned/zombie processes). And then at this point, when all the child processes have finished and exited, I would like the program to end.
However now and with my code as shown below, when the user types "quit", although the child processes terminate successfully, the loop starts over. Does any one know what am I doing wrong in the code?
int status = 0;
while (1) {
// Read request from standard input
printf("Enter a message: ");
memset(out_buffer, 0, BUFFER_SIZE);
fgets(out_buffer, BUFFER_SIZE - 1, stdin);
out_buffer[strcspn(out_buffer, "\r\n")] = 0;
// Spawn new process to handle new client
if ((pid = fork()) == -1) {
printf("[-]Error spawning child process for new client.\n");
continue;
}
// Child process
else if (pid == 0) {
// ...
if (input_status == -2) {
printf("[-]Disconnected from server.\n");
close(socket_fd);
termination_call = 1;
exit(0);
}
}
if (termination_call == 1) {
printf("[-]Client terminating...\n");
break;
}
}
// Wait for all child processes to exit
while ((wpid = wait(&status)) > 0);
return 0;
You need to check for the "quit" command in the parent.
When you fork a new process, it runs independent of the parent process, and no data is shared between them.
If you want to share data then consider threads.