The fork() doesn't know anything about the while loop. It simply copies the current process completely and returns the pid to the original process and 0 to the child process.

In your example, that means that it reloops in the original process and executes the rest of the loop in the child process. If there wouldn't be an exit() at the end of the loop, then the child would also start at the beginning of the loop again.

Maybe it's clearer written like this: 

while(my $client = $server->accept()) {
  my $pid = fork;
  if (!defined $pid) {
    die "Could not fork()\n";
  } elsif ($pid == 0) {
    # random
    # client
    # handling
    # stuff
    exit;
  }
}

[download]
Liz

In reply to Re: Forking and loops: A plea for understanding. by liz
in thread Forking and loops: A plea for understanding. by BUU

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