What Is Child Process?

A computer process formed by another process, referred to as the parent process, is referred to as a child process. Child processes are self-sufficient entities distinct from their parent processes and can operate in parallel with the latter. Because of this, it is possible to work on several different tasks simultaneously, resulting in the more effective functioning of the system. Imagine a kid process as a short version of a superhero, complete with its powers and capabilities. Child processes, like superheroes, can complete things that their parent process cannot or can complete jobs more rapidly or effectively. And much like superheroes, kid processes are autonomous concerning their parent processes, which means they are free to go out and accomplish their goals without the parent process being required to be concerned about what is going on. In web servers, for example, a parent process might spawn child processes to manage incoming client requests. This is one example of a typical use case for child processes. This enables the web server to process numerous requests simultaneously instead of waiting for one request to finish before moving on to the next. The fork() system call is used in Unix-based systems to generate child processes, whereas the CreateProcess() function is used in Windows-based systems to do the same task. The child process takes on some of the characteristics of its parent process, such as the environment variables and file descriptors. Still, it also possesses its own unique address space and process ID. The child process can inherit some of the qualities of its parent process. Inter-process communication (IPC) techniques like pipes, sockets and signals allow a child process to interact with its parent. Because of this, the parent process can govern and coordinate the execution of the child processes that it contains.