Reference: fork
Author: Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour & Nathan Patwardhan
Date: 1999-07-02T01:35:07Z

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| Chapter 5 Function Reference |

## fork

    fork

Spawns a child process that executes the code immediately following the `fork` call until the process is terminated (usually with an `exit`). The child process runs parallel to the parent process and shares all the parent's variables and open filehandles. The function returns the child pid to the parent process and `0` to the child process on success. If it fails, it returns the undefined value to the parent process, and no child process is created. If you `fork` your child processes, you'll have to `wait` on their zombies when they die. See the `wait` function for more information. The `fork` function is unlikely to be implemented on any operating system not resembling Unix, unless it purports POSIX compliance.

Reference: flock |  | Reference: formline