PIB

PIB

Process Information Block.

Type

ULONG  pib_ulpid
ULONG  pib_ulppid
ULONG  pib_hmte
PCHAR  pib_pchcmd
PCHAR  pib_pchenv
ULONG  pib_flstatus
ULONG  pib_ultype

C Declaration Method

typedef struct

Fields

pib_ulpid

Process identifier.

pib_ulppid

Parent process identifier.

pib_hmte

Module handle of executable program.

pib_pchcmd

Command line pointer.

This is the address of the ASCIIZ argument strings passed to the program. This string represents command parameters.

The convention used by CMD.EXE is that the first of these strings is the program name (as entered from the command prompt or found in a batch file), and the second string consists of the parameters for the program. The second ASCIIZ string is followed by an additional byte of zeros. A value of zero for the address of pib_pchcmd means that no arguments are to be passed to the program.

pib_pchenv

Environment pointer.

These strings represent environment variables and their current values. An environment string has the following form:

variable=value

The last ASCIIZ environment string must be followed by an additional byte of zeros.

pib_flstatus

Process' status bits.

A value of 1 in this bit flag indicates that the current process is in exit list processing.

pib_ultype

Process' type code.

The following process' type codes are available:

0 Full screen protect-mode session

1 Requires real mode. Dos emulation.

2 VIO windowable protect-mode session

3 Presentation Manager protect-mode session

4 Detached protect-mode process.

Comment

An application that has been loaded into memory and prepared for execution is called a process. A process is the code, data, and other resources of an application, such as file handles, semaphores, pipes, queues, and so on. The operating system considers every application it loads to be a process.

Information about a process is kept in a read/write area of the process address space, called the Process Information Block.