wait3, wait4 - wait for process termination, BSD style


SYNOPSIS

       #define _USE_BSD
       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/time.h>
       #include <sys/resource.h>
       #include <sys/wait.h>

       pid_t wait3(int *status, int options,
             struct rusage *rusage)

       pid_t wait4(pid_t pid, int *status, int options,
             struct rusage *rusage)


DESCRIPTION

       The  wait3 function suspends execution of the current pro­
       cess until a child has exited, or until a signal is deliv­
       ered  whose  action is to terminate the current process or
       to call a  signal  handling  function.   If  a  child  has
       already  exited by the time of the call (a so-called "zom­
       bie" process), the function returns immediately.  Any sys­
       tem resources used by the child are freed.

       The  wait4 function suspends execution of the current pro­
       cess until a child as specified by the  pid  argument  has
       exited,  or until a signal is delivered whose action is to
       terminate the current process or to call a signal handling
       function.   If  a  child  as  requested by pid has already
       exited by the time of the call (a so-called "zombie"  pro­
       cess),  the  function  returns  immediately.   Any  system
       resources used by the child are freed.

       The value of pid can be one of:

       < -1   which means to wait for  any  child  process  whose
              process  group ID is equal to the absolute value of
              pid.

       -1     which means to wait for any child process; this  is
              equivalent to calling wait3.

       0      which  means  to  wait  for any child process whose
              process group ID is equal to that  of  the  calling
              process.

       > 0    which  means to wait for the child whose process ID
              is equal to the value of pid.

       The value of options is a bitwise OR of zero  or  more  of
       the following constants:

              which  means  to  return immediately if no child is
              there to be waited for.

       WUNTRACED
              which means to also return for children  which  are
              stopped, and whose status has not been reported.

       If  status is not NULL, wait3 or wait4 store status infor­
       mation in the location pointed to by status.

       This status can be evaluated  with  the  following  macros
       (these macros take the stat buffer (an int) as an argument
       -- not a pointer to the buffer!):

       WIFEXITED(status)
              is non-zero if the child exited normally.

       WEXITSTATUS(status)
              evaluates to the least significant  eight  bits  of
              the  return  code  of  the  child which terminated,
              which may have been set as the argument to  a  call
              to exit() or as the argument for a return statement
              in the main program.  This macro can only be evalu­
              ated if WIFEXITED returned non-zero.

       WIFSIGNALED(status)
              returns true if the child process exited because of
              a signal which was not caught.

       WTERMSIG(status)
              returns the number of the signal  that  caused  the
              child  process to terminate. This macro can only be
              evaluated if WIFSIGNALED returned non-zero.

       WIFSTOPPED(status)
              returns true if the child process which caused  the
              return  is currently stopped; this is only possible
              if the call was done using WUNTRACED.

       WSTOPSIG(status)
              returns the number of the signal which  caused  the
              child to stop.  This macro can only be evaluated if
              WIFSTOPPED returned non-zero.

       If rusage is not NULL, the struct  rusage  as  defined  in
       <sys/resource.h> it points to will be filled with account­
       ing information.  See getrusage(2) for details.


RETURN VALUE

       The process ID of the child which exited, -1 on error  (in
       particular,  when  no  unwaited-for child processes of the
       specified kind exist) or zero if WNOHANG was used  and  no
       child  was  available  yet.  In the latter two cases errno



ERRORS

       ECHILD No unwaited-for child  process  as  specified  does
              exist.

       ERESTARTSYS
              if WNOHANG was not set and an unblocked signal or a
              SIGCHLD was caught. This error is returned  by  the
              system  call.  The library interface is not allowed
              to return ERESTARTSYS, but will return EINTR.


NOTE

       Including <sys/time.h> is not  required  these  days,  but
       increases  portability.  (Indeed, <sys/resource.h> defines
       the rusage structure with fields of  type  struct  timeval
       defined in <sys/time.h>.)


CONFORMING TO

       SVr4, POSIX.1


SEE ALSO

       signal(2), getrusage(2), wait(2), signal(7)


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