WHAT IS A PROCESS?
When we write a program in high level language, it has to be converted into binary code with the help of compiler to make it understandable for the machine and now the program is ready for execution but it is not enough to tell the computer what it wants to do. So the operating system will help in loading that executable program into the memory and allocate its resources and then the program will begin its execution. The program till the time just sits there without doing anything but the moment it begins execution, at that instance we call that program as process.
When a program,module or function is in execution, it is called a process. When we write a computer program,it is in text file and when we execute this computer program in the main memory it becomes a process. When a program is loaded into memory and it becomes a process and it performs all the tasks mentioned in the program, it can be divided into four components stack,heap,text and data.
The layout of process inside main memory contains‐
• Stack contains the temporary data such as functions, parameters, local variables.
• Heap provides dynamically allocated memory to process only during runtime.
• Data contains global variables and static variables
• Text includes the current activity representation by the value of program counter and the contents of processor registers
