Fork() system call.

Question

main(){

int i,n;

 for(int i=0;i<n;i++){

fork();

printf("*");

}

}

How many times ‘*’ will be printed? The answer is not 2^n ? why?

Comments

It will vary. Check for n=1,2,3. If you checked this please give what expression you are getting. I am not getting any fixed expression

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I am getting this expression.

2^(n+1)-2

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getting correct for n=4?? too. if yes then I think this correct

Answer 1

each time the for loop gets executed it prints star(*) two times

=> cuz fork() creates one child and it prints one star and when the control comes back to parent it prints * again

so for n loop executions the answer should be => 2n

Comments

No this is not the right answer. Let say n=3 ,then I will be getting 14 stars. I think the general expression is 2^(n+1)-2. I don’t know why.