WAIT(2)                 GENIX Programmer's Manual                 WAIT(2)



      NAME
           wait - wait for process to terminate

      SYNOPSIS
           wait(status)
           int *status;

           wait(0)

      DESCRIPTION
           Wait causes its caller to delay until a signal is received or one of
           its  child  processes  terminates.   If any child has died since the
           last wait, return is immediate; if there are no children, return  is
           immediate  with  the  error  bit  set  (resp.  with  a  value  of -1
           returned).  The normal return yields the  process  ID  of  the  ter-
           minated  child.   In the case of several children several wait calls
           are needed to learn of all the deaths.

           If (int)status is nonzero, the high byte  of  the  word  pointed  to
           receives  the  low  byte of the argument of exit when the child ter-
           minated.  The low byte receives the termination status of  the  pro-
           cess.  See signal(2) for a list of termination statuses (signals); 0
           status indicates normal termination.  A  special  status  (0177)  is
           returned  for  a stopped process which has not terminated and can be
           restarted.  See ptrace(2).  If  the  0200  bit  of  the  termination
           status  is set, a core image of the process was produced by the sys-
           tem.

           If the parent process terminates without waiting  on  its  children,
           the initialization process (process ID = 1) inherits the children.

           There is another entry wait3(2) which is provides additional options
           needed by the shell csh(1) to do job control.

      SEE ALSO
           wait3(2), exit(2), fork(2), signal(2)

      DIAGNOSTICS
           Returns -1 if there are no children not previously waited for.
















      Printed 11/16/83                                                        1