process
1. <operating system, software> The sequence of states of an executing
program. A process consists of the program code (which may be shared with other
processes which are executing the same program), private data, and the state of
the processor, particularly the values in its registers. It may have other
associated resources such as a process identifier, open files, CPU time limits,
shared memory, child processes, and signal handlers.
One process may, on some platforms, consist of many threads. A multitasking
operating system can run multiple processes concurrently or in parallel, and
allows a process to spawn "child" processes.
(2001-06-16)
2. <business> The sequence of activities, people, and systems involved in
carrying out some business or achieving some desired result. E.g. software
development process, project management process, configuration management
process.
(2001-06-16)
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process ID
Process and Experiment Automation Real-Time Language
<language> (PEARL) A real-time language for programming process control
systems, widely used in Europe. Size and complexity exceeds Ada. Defined in DIN
66253 Teil 2.
["Programmiersprache PEARL", Beuth-Verlag, Nov 1980].
(2000-08-16)
Nearby terms:
Procedural Language/SQL « procedure « process «
Process and Experiment Automation Real-Time Language
» Process Design Language 2 » process ID » process
identifier
Process Design Language 2
<language> (PDL2) A language developed for the Texas Instruments ASC
computer.
["Texas Instruments Process Design Methodology - Design Specification: Process
Design Language", Volume I (Sep 1976)].
[Mentioned in "An Overview of Ada" J.G.P. Barnes, Soft Prac & Exp 10:851-887
(1980)].
(1995-08-13)
Nearby terms:
procedure « process « Process and Experiment
Automation Real-Time Language « Process Design
Language 2 » process ID » process identifier »
processing
process ID
process identifier
Nearby terms:
process « Process and Experiment Automation
Real-Time Language « Process Design Language 2 «
process ID » process identifier » processing »
processor
process identifier
<operating system> (PID) An integer used by the Unix kernel to uniquely
identify a process. PIDs are returned by the fork system call and can be passed
to wait() or kill() to perform actions on the given process.
(1996-12-09)
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Processor Direct Slot
processing
<data processing, signal processing> Performing some predefined sequence
of operations on an input to produce an output or change of internal state;
activity specifically involving the computer's CPU.
The term is often qualified: "data processing" treats digital data, "signal
processing" treats analog data (possibly in digital form), "word processing"
takes in typed human language input and produces digital documents, image
processing transforms digital images.
(2003-10-23)
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Process Design Language 2 « process ID « process
identifier « processing » processor »
Processor Direct Slot » processor farm
processor
central processing unit
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processor
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time
Processor Direct Slot
<hardware> (PDS) Apple Computer's name for a local bus connection. Most
Macintoshes have only one PDS connector. Different Apple computers have
different PDS specifications.
(1995-05-02)
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Processor Direct Slot » processor farm »
processor time » process scheduling
processor farm
<computer, parallel> A parallel processor where tasks are distributed, or
"farmed out", by one "farmer" processor to several "worker" processors, and
results are sent back to the farmer. This arrangement is suitable for
applications which can be partitioned into many separate, independent tasks, the
canonical examples being ray tracing and the Mandelbrot set. In order to be
efficient, the extra time spent on communications must be small compared to the
time spent processing each task.
(2001-05-28)
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processor farm » processor time » process
scheduling » process table
processor time
<software> The amount of time a process takes to run, given that it has
exclusive and uninterrupted use of the CPU. Note that in a modern computer, this
would be very unusual, and so the processor time calculation for most processes
involves adding up all the small amounts of time the CPU actually spends on the
process.
Some systems break processor time down into user time and system time.
Compare wall clock time.
(1998-03-13)
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processor time » process scheduling » process
table » PROCOL
process scheduling
multitasking
Nearby terms:
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time «
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Procomm
process table
<operating system, process> A table containing all of the information
that must be saved when the CPU switches from running one process to another in
a multitasking system.
The information in the process table allows the suspended process to be
restarted at a later time as if it had never been stopped. Every process has an
entry in the table. These entries are known as process control blocks and
contain the following information:
process state - information needed so that the process can be loaded into memory
and run, such as the program counter, the stack pointer, and the values of
registers.
memory state - details of the memory allocation such as pointers to the various
memory areas used by the program
resource state - information regarding the status of files being used by the
process such as user ID.
Accounting and scheduling information.
An example of a UNIX process table is shown below.
SLOT ST PID PGRP UID PRI CPU EVENT NAME FLAGS
0 s 0 0 0 95 0 runout sched load sys
1 s 1 0 0 66 1 u init load
2 s 2 0 0 95 0 10bbdc vhand load sys
SLOT is the entry number of the process.
ST shows whether the process is paused or sleeping (s), ready to run (r), or
running on a CPU (o).
PID is the process ID.
PGRP is the process Group.
UID is the user ID.
PRI is the priority of the process from 127 (highest) to 0 (lowest).
EVENT is the event on which a process is paused or sleeping.
NAME is the name of the process.
FLAGS are the process flags.
A process that has died but still has an entry in the process table is called a
zombie process.
(1998-04-24)
Nearby terms:
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