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What is Process Control Block

A process in an Operating system is represented by a data structure known as a process control block (PCB) or process descriptor. The PCB contains important information about the specific process including

The current state of the process i.e., whether it is ready, running, waiting, or whatever.

Unique identification of the process in order to track "which is which" information.

A pointer to parent process.

Similarly, a pointer to child process (if it exists).

The priority of process (a part of CPU scheduling information).

Pointers to locate memory of processes.

A register save area.

The processor it is running on.

The PCB is a certain store that allows the operating systems to locate key information about a process. Thus, the PCB is the data structure that defines a process to the operating systems.


This post first appeared on Operating System, please read the originial post: here

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What is Process Control Block

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