PROCESS PROPERTIES

The PROCESS PROPERTIES command returns various information about the process whose process number you pass in process.

After the call:

• procName returns the name of the process. Some things to note about the process name:
  
  • If the process was started from the Execute Method dialog box (with the New Process option selected), its name is “P_” followed by a number.
  • If the process was started from a custom menu item whose Start a New Process property is checked, the name of the process is “M_” or “ML_” followed by a number.
  • If the process was started by the Web server, its name is "Web Process#" followed by an UUID.
  • If the process has been aborted (and its “slot” not reused yet), the name of the process is still returned. To detect if a process is aborted, test procState=-1 (see below).

• procState returns the state of the process at the moment of the call. This parameter can return one of the values provided by the following predefined constants:
  

  Constant	Type	Value
  Aborted	Longint	-1
  Delayed	Longint	1
  Does not exist	Longint	-100
  Executing	Longint	0
  Hidden modal dialog	Longint	6
  Paused	Longint	5
  Waiting for input output	Longint	3
  Waiting for internal flag	Longint	4
  Waiting for user event	Longint	2

• procTime returns the cumulative time that the process has used since it started, in ticks (1/60th of a second) .
• The optional procMode parameter can be a Boolean or longint type variable:
  
  • If it is a Boolean type, it returns True if the process is visible and False if it is hidden.
  • If it is a longint type, after the method is executed, it contains a bit field where the two first bits are set:
    
    • bit 0 returns the visibility property: set to 1 if process is visible, and 0 if it is hidden
    • bit 1 returns the preemptive mode property: set to 1 if process runs in preemptive mode, and 0 if it runs in cooperative mode.
      Note: This property is only useful in 64-bit 4D applications, where processes can be run preemptively or cooperatively. For more information, please refer to the Preemptive 4D processes section.
• uniqueID, if specified, returns the unique process number. Actually, each process has attributed a process number to it as well as a unique process number per session. The unique number allows you to differentiate between two processes or two process sessions. It corresponds to the process number having been started during 4D’s session.
• origin, if specified, returns a value that describes the origin of the process. 4D offers the following predefined constants (in the "Process Type" theme):
  

  Constant	Type	Value	Comment
  Apple event manager	Longint	-7
  Backup process	Longint	-19
  Cache manager	Longint	-4
  Client manager process	Longint	-31
  Created from execution dialog	Longint	3
  Created from menu command	Longint	2
  Design process	Longint	-2
  Event manager	Longint	-8
  Execute on client process	Longint	-14
  Execute on server process	Longint	1
  External task	Longint	-9
  Indexing process	Longint	-5
  Internal 4D server process	Longint	-18
  Internal timer process	Longint	-25
  Log file process	Longint	-20
  Main process	Longint	-1
  Method editor macro process	Longint	-17
  Monitor process	Longint	-26
  MSC process	Longint	-22
  None	Longint	0
  On exit process	Longint	-16
  Other 4D process	Longint	-10
  Other user process	Longint	4
  Restore Process	Longint	-21
  Serial Port Manager	Longint	-6
  Server interface process	Longint	-15
  SQL Method execution process	Longint	-24
  Web process on 4D remote	Longint	-12
  Web process with no context	Longint	-3
  Web server process	Longint	-13
  Worker process	Longint	5	Worker process launched by user

If the process does not exist, which means you did not pass a number in the range 1 to Count tasks, PROCESS PROPERTIES leaves the variable parameters unchanged.

The following example returns the name, state, and time taken in the variables vName, vState, and vTimeSpent for the current process:

C_TEXT(vName) ` Initialize the variables
C_LONGINT(vState)
C_LONGINT(vTime)
PROCESS PROPERTIES (Current process; vName; vState; vTimeSpent)

See example for On Exit database method.

You want to find out the visibility and execution mode of the current process. You can write: