Process (computing): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:13, 25 December 2022

Revision as of 09:59, 11 January 2023

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In general, a computer system process consists of (or is said to ''own'') the following resources:

* An ''image'' of the executable [[machine code]] associated with a program.

* Memory (typically some region of [[virtual memory]]); which includes the executable code, process-specific data (input and output), a [[call stack]] (to keep track of active [[subroutine]]s and/or other events), and a [[Memory management#DynamicManual memory allocationmanagement|heap]] to hold intermediate computation data generated during run time.

* Operating system descriptors of resources that are allocated to the process, such as [[file descriptor]]s ([[Unix]] terminology) or [[Handle (computing)|handles]] ([[Microsoft Windows|Windows]]), and data sources and sinks.

* [[Computer security|Security]] attributes, such as the process owner and the process' set of permissions (allowable operations).