fork

A fork occurs when one part of a program splits off to perform a subtask. On a Unix system, the program actually makes a copy of itself and starts this programming running in order to perform the subtask. A fork might occur on the WWW when a server is receiving multiple client requests. A fork system is not the most efficient method of dealing with multiple requests. By contrast, a threaded process uses an independent unit or thread within a process, but all threads in the process share the same memory space address.

W3E References:

client/server

server

Print References:

• Client/Server Computing for Technical Professionals: Concepts and Solutions. Johnson M. Hart and Barry Rosenberg. Addisson-Wesley, Reading MA, 1995. (ISBN 0-201-63388-4)