redhat man page for fork

FORK(2) 						     Linux Programmer's Manual							   FORK(2)

NAME
       fork - create a child process

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <unistd.h>

       pid_t fork(void);

DESCRIPTION
       fork  creates a child process that differs from the parent process only in its PID and PPID, and in the fact that resource utilizations are
       set to 0.  File locks and pending signals are not inherited.

       Under Linux, fork is implemented using copy-on-write pages, so the only penalty incurred by fork is the time and memory required to  dupli-
       cate the parent's page tables, and to create a unique task structure for the child.

RETURN VALUE
       On success, the PID of the child process is returned in the parent's thread of execution, and a 0 is returned in the child's thread of exe-
       cution.	On failure, a -1 will be returned in the parent's context, no child process will be created, and errno will be set appropriately.

ERRORS
       EAGAIN fork cannot allocate sufficient memory to copy the parent's page tables and allocate a task structure for the child.

       ENOMEM fork failed to allocate the necessary kernel structures because memory is tight.

CONFORMING TO
       The fork call conforms to SVr4, SVID, POSIX, X/OPEN, BSD 4.3.

SEE ALSO
       clone(2), execve(2), vfork(2), wait(2)

Linux 1.2.9							    1995-06-10								   FORK(2)