Creating child processes in c for windows ---------------

[DaniDak]

Hi,
I have never done this before in c or c++ for either unix or windows, so any help is very appreciated.

I need to have a main program(parent that creates two child processes after creating two pipes to communicate with them.
- The first child has to generate odd numbers from 1 to 49 pausing for a random time 0 to 999 ms after each.
- The second child has to generate even numbers from 2 to 50 pausing for a random time 0 to 999 ms after each.
- While each child process puts its generated numbers on its own pipe, the parent (original main program) has to go around a loop checking for the next available number in sequence (alternating between the pipes) and printing it out when it finds it; each time around the loop, it pauses a random time 0 to 499 ms.

- I was thinking of using _pipe and _spawnl functions to create the pipes and child processes, and Sleep to pause each process, but the problem is that I have never done this before. Another thing, I have to pass the appropriate "read handle" to each process as a command-line argument, and a command-line argument so each child will know which one it is.

Thank you.

 

[Temps]

Not sure why you want to do all this by spawning child processes. Why don't you make the program multi-threaded and do what you require on different threads?

You can get each thread to write a number to a 'queue' (STL will give you the code needed) and the main thread can then loop and read each 'queue' alternatively.

 

[Cagliostro]

Hi,
A process in Windows is the running program. It only owns its virtual memory and its virtual registry, but does not do anything. In windows runs only threads. To create a new thread (as a new process in Unix by using fork) you will use function CreateThread. Ion Filipski

filipski@excite.com