Unix to Windows Porting Dictionary for HPC

header files: sys/types.h, signal.h

int killpg (pid_t pgrp, int signum)

header file: Windows.h

The Unix killpg() function sends a signal to a group of processes with the same process group number.

Windows does not have the concept of process groups as Unix does. While on Windows each process does have a process identifier there is no OS system based grouping of processes. Nor is the parent-child relationship between processes maintained by the OS. Additionally there is no concept of signals on Windows. These points are some of the key ones that describe the different paradigms of these two operating systems and why porting source code between the two systems is not straight-forward.

While a process (or a thread) may be terminated using Windows API's, Unix signals can communicate many different signals beyond termination.