The answer depends on the system you run it on - perhaps you should elucidate.
Main Topics
Browse All TopicsI start a fork a new process in my program with execl and I get this process id. Is there a way for me to check and see later in my original program if this process is still running and to get the user id of this process.
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
If waitpid returns the process id, that means that there's a status. There's also a WIFEXITED macro on some systems that will help you tell if the process exited.
Alternatively, each system has it's own calls. For instance, on Linux you could check to see if there's a directory named /proc/<process id> using access().
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: joele23Posted on 2003-02-25 at 14:28:20ID: 8020734
hmm..must be tougher than I thought