As the process executes that is from creation to termination, it goes through different states. The state of a process can be defined as the current activity of a process.

The common states of a process are:

New:

The process is being created.

Ready:

This state signifies that it is waiting to be assigned to a processor. It has got all the resources and is waiting for the short term scheduler to be given to the processor.

If there is more than one program in the ready state (main memory) means it is multiprogramming.

Running:

The process is running; its instructions are getting executed that is it has been picked up by the short term scheduler and is given to the CPU.

Wait/Block

This wait signifies that the process is waiting for some resources, some event to occur (like I/O operations). It’s process descriptor(PD) is added to the corresponding wait Queue.

Suspend:

The process is temporarily swapped to secondary memory by the medium term scheduler to make room for a new process as the process in wait or block state can not progress.

Terminated State:

The process has completed its execution (normal Termination) or abnormal termination because of trying to access some illegal memory or instructions.

Note:

A process can take minimum of four states: new->ready->running->terminated

Diag-1: Process States

Related Posts:

• Process vs program
• Sections of a process
• Process Data structure (PCB)
• Attributes of a process
• Context switching
• Termination of a process

Categories: Operating system (OS)