Why does wait() set status to 256 instead of the -1 exit status of the forked process?

Question

I\'m trying to return an integer value from a child process.

However, if I use exit(1) i get 256 as the output. exit(-1)

Answer 1

Use WEXITSTATUS() to read the correct exit status of child

Pass the status returned by waitpid() or wait()

e.g.:

int cstatus;
wait(&cstatus);
printf("Child exit status : %d\n", WEXITSTATUS(cstatus));