A process creation hierarchy is a graphical representation of the dynamically changing parent-child relationships among all processes. The process creation hierarchy changes each time a process is created or destroyed.
When a process initiates the creation of a child process, the OS executes a create process function. The create process function allocates a new PCB, fills the PCB entries with initial values, and links the PCB to other data structures in the system.
The destroy process function destroys a process by freeing the PCB data structure and removing any references to the PCB from the system.
Since a destruction may occur at any time, either by design, or through an error occurring, it is important for the OS to decide what to do with open files, child processes, etc. In most OSes, the child processes are shut down, and all OSes should close the files.
Operations on Processes was originally found on Access 2 Learn
