fork()- multiple files accessed by parent & child processes - c

Question

For educational purposes, I wrote a program that forks a process and ...
the child continuously reads 3 files, prints the contents, sleeps for 10ms.
the parent keeps a counter for each file. each file also has a delay time associated with it.
each time a file's timer expires, the counter is incremented and the file is overwritten with the
new counter value. Each delay value is different, so all 3 files get updated at different rates.
The problem is, the counters only increment for a short time, and everything freezes after a few seconds. Can anyone give a good explanation of what is happening here?
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#define CHAN1WAIT 100000
#define CHAN2WAIT 750000
#define CHAN3WAIT 1000000
#define NCHAN 3
FILE *chanfiles[NCHAN] = {NULL, NULL, NULL}; //file pointers for fake 'devices'
char *filenames[NCHAN] = {"_chan1tmpfile_", "_chan2tmpfile_", "_chan3tmpfile_"};
int chanwait[NCHAN] = {CHAN1WAIT, CHAN2WAIT, CHAN3WAIT}; //time it takes for each 'device' to be updated with a new value
int chancount[NCHAN] = {0, 0, 0}; //value for each device
int clrcount = NCHAN * 8;
uint8_t chan1;
int read_chan (int chan)
{
char buf[4];
char c;
int i, ret;
short count = 0;
uint8_t set = 0;
char * retstr;
while (! set)
{
if (chanfiles[chan] == NULL) //if file is not in use
{
if ((chanfiles[chan] = fopen(filenames[chan], "r")) == NULL)
{
printf("Error opening file %s for reading.\n%s\n", filenames[chan], strerror(errno));
exit(-1);
}
while ((c = fgetc(chanfiles[chan])) != EOF)
{
buf[count] = c;
count++;
}
fclose(chanfiles[chan]);
chanfiles[chan] = NULL;
retstr = malloc(count + 1);
for (i = 0; i < count; i++) retstr[i] = buf[i];
ret = atoi(retstr);
free(retstr);
set = 1;
}
}
return ret;
}
void write_chan (int chan)
{
uint8_t set = 0;
while (! set)
{
if (chanfiles[chan] == NULL) //if file is not in use
{
if ((chanfiles[chan] = fopen(filenames[chan], "w")) == 0)
{
printf("Error opening file %s for writing.\n%s\n", filenames[chan], strerror(errno));
exit(-1);
}
if (fprintf(chanfiles[chan], "%d", chancount[chan]) < 0)
{
printf("Error writing to file %s:\n%s\n", filenames[chan], strerror(errno));
exit(-1);
}
fclose(chanfiles[chan]);
chanfiles[chan] = NULL;
set = 1;
}
}
}
time_t get_usecs()
{
struct timeval tv;
gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);
return tv.tv_sec + tv.tv_usec;
}
int main (int argc, char * argv[])
{
pid_t pid;
time_t curtime;
int i;
for (i = 0; i < NCHAN; i++) write_chan(i);
printf("\nChannel:");
for (i = 0; i < NCHAN; i++) printf("%8d", i);
printf("\n Value:");
pid = fork();
// This process reads all 3 files, prints the values,
// then sleeps for 10ms, in an infinite loop.
if (pid == 0)
{
int j;
while (1)
{
uint8_t set;
for (j = 0; j < NCHAN; j++)
{
int value;
set = 0;
value = read_chan(j);
printf("%8d", value);
}
fflush(stdout);
usleep(10000);
for (j = 0; j < clrcount; j++) printf("\b"); fflush(stdout);
}
}
// This process updates the values of all 3 files at
// different rates, based on the value in chanwait[]
// for each file.
else
{
time_t timers[NCHAN];
int i;
for (i = 0; i < NCHAN; i++) timers[i] = get_usecs();
while (1)
{
for (i = 0; i < NCHAN; i++)
{
if ((get_usecs() - timers[i]) >= chanwait[i])
{
chancount[i]++;
write_chan(i);
timers[i] = get_usecs();
}
}
}
}
}

Answer 1

I am not sure this is your only problem, but your get_usecs function is suspect. You probably meant this
return tv.tv_sec * 1000000 + tv.tv_usec;
Rather than
return tv.tv_sec + tv.tv_usec;
Although, note that time_t is only guaranteed to be large enough for the time in seconds, not the number of microseconds as you have used it.