Executing fork call gives exit status 0x3 for Linux

Resolving the "fork" Call Issue with Exit Status 0x3 in Linux

This blog post addresses the issue encountered when executing the "fork" call in Linux, resulting in an exit status of 0x3. The code snippet provided exhibits a bug that assigns "current_cnt" to 0, effectively preventing the code from reaching "fork()" and "execv()". The solution involves moving "current_cnt = 0;" to the end of the "if" clause.

      current_cnt = 0;

      if (current_cnt > 0) // can NOT reach below
      {
        // Start child process.
        pid_t rc;
        if ((rc = fork()) < 0) {
          // There was an error.
          abort();
        } else if (rc == 0) {
          // Run the i'th process.
          printf("%d\n", execv(argv[cnt - current_cnt], &argv[cnt]));
          exit(0);
        }
      }
    

To further diagnose the issue, the "wait()" function can be employed to return "(pid_t)(-1)" in case of failure. By examining the "errno" variable, we can obtain a detailed explanation of the cause of the error.

      #include 

      pid = wait(&status);
      int err = errno;
      printf("Error: %s\n", strerror(err)); // Error: No child processes
    

In conclusion, by addressing the bug in the code and employing the "wait()" function for error handling, we can successfully rectify the issue where the "fork" call returns an exit status of 0x3 in Linux.