Process Control Block Diagram in OS

Process Control Block in OS is a Data Structure maintained by Operating System for each Process.

In the previous process management in operating system tutorial, we have learned about different basics concepts of the process such as the basic introduction of process, abstract view of the process in memory or process architecture, and process state diagram.

Today in this process control block in os tutorial, we will discuss process control block, example for process control block and function of process control block and its numerous field that provides the knowledge concerning the process.

Frequently Asked Questions

By the end of this process, control block diagram tutorial computer science student will be able to answer the following questions

• What are different the Process States ?
• What is Process Id?
• What do you understand by Program Counter?
• What are different Processor Registers?
• What is a Process Control Block?
• Make a process control block Diagram?
• What are the different attributes of the Process Control Block?

Operating System maintains a data structure for each process. Every process has it own process control block diagram. When a process is created then a unique id is assigned to the process.

                                        Figure 1 : Process Control Block

Operating System determines a process among all processes on the idea of this process id. A PCB, also known as a process control block, keeps all the knowledge required to stay track of a process. Typically a process control’ block contains the subsequent info a couple of processes.

What are different Attributes of Process Control Block ?

Different Attributes or Field of Process Control Block are as follow –

• Process State
• Process Privileges
• Process ID
• Pointers
• Program Counters
• CPU Registers
• CPU Scheduling Information
• Memory Management Information

Let’s understand Each of the above field one by one.

All the fields of a process control block are as shown in Figure 1.

Process State: The process state field of the process control block provides information about the current state of the process at any instant of time.

After creation till termination during the process life cycle, a process may be ready, running, and waiting state.

Process Privileges: This is often needed to produce the knowledge concerning allow/disallow access to the system resources.

Process ID: Each is assigned a distinctive identification for every one of the operating system processes. This is known as process id. The operating system identifies a process in a process set based on process id.

Pointer: The pointer field of PCB provides information about the parent process. It represents a pointer to the parent process.

Program Counter: This is an important field. Program Counter could be a pointer to the address of the next instruction to be fetch of this process. Whenever an instruction is fetched from the memory value of the program counter is increased by one.

CPU Registers: Numerous processor registers are used by the CPU while executing a process. This field provides information about these registers used by the CPU at any instant of time.

CPU Scheduling Information: Scheduling of processes is an important function of the operating system in a multiprogramming environment. This field of PCB contains the planning information or scheduling information.

This field tells about the which scheduling algorithm. Several process scheduling algorithms such as first-come, first serve, shortest job, shortest remaining time first, round-robin, and priority CPU scheduling algorithm are used to schedule a process.

Memory Management Information: Memory management is another important function of an operating system. The operating system allocates the memory to the process to load the process in the main memory.

This field of process control block provides the memory allocation in os to a process. This field provides the knowledge of page table, memory limits, and page table employed by the operating system.

Accounting Information: This field of process control block contains the information about the percentage of CPU utilization, the processor used for process execution, limits, execution ID, and so on.

IO standing Information: This includes a listing of I/O devices allotted to the process.

Conclusion and Summary

We have discussed the following concepts in this process control block in the os tutorial.

• Introduction of process and process states.
• Introduction of process control block diagram.
• Study of different fields of the process control block.

I hope that this process control block diagram tutorial-based will help computer science students understand the concepts of process control block.

Your feedback is really valuable for us. Please give your feedback or leave a comment to improve the quality of our tutorials and provide tutorials as per your expectation.

If you find this page useful, please Like and Share the post on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn through their icons.

Previous Tutorial – Multithreading in Operating System

Next Tutorial – BARE Machine and Resident Monitor in Operating System