Process control block vs process table?

7
votes

Struggling to work out the difference between a process control block and a process table.

A process table as far as I can see is a table that stores what was the last 'processed' instruction, and what is next in that queue?

As far as I can see a process control block seems to do the same?

Can someone clarify this to me please?

2
processoperating-system

2 Answers

12
votes

A process control block (pcb) contains information about the process, I.e. registers, quantum, priority, etc.

The process table is an array of pcb's.

0
votes

PCB is helpful in making contest switches..whenever some process is preempted or terminated its context is switched from PCB..while Process Table contains information only about the registers etc.