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Unix PIDs

nobody@kodak.com (E. Brown)
(computer, smirk)

Return-Address: ebrown@ssd.kodak.com

I was asking my friend a serious question - I should have thought
a bit more before I asked.

>Neil, Do you know what happens to pids when they get too big.
>I know Process ids always get bigger, but what happens when
>they get bigger than 31 bits?  Do they roll over?  Do you know?

>Thanks, Eric.

The world stops and everyone dies.  2^31 is 2 billion (give or take a
few).  At the rate of one new process per second, 60 per minute, 3600
per hour, 86400 per day, 31536000 per year, 315360000 per decade, it
will take 6.8 decades to reach 2^31.  Let me know if you run into a
problem with this, I'll file a bug report.  Neil

PS: Oh, you have to include a reproducible program for the bug report,
I guess that makes it tougher :-)

(From the "Rest" of RHF)


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