---
title: Introduction to Interacting with the Operating System
framework: cocoa
role: article
path: apple-archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/OperatingSystem
---

# Introduction to Interacting with the Operating System

Explains how Cocoa applications manage tasks and get information about hosts and processes.

## Organization of This Document

This document contains the following articles:

- [Host Information](Concepts/host.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000800-BBCIGEED) discusses how to perform domain name lookups. - [Process Information](Concepts/process.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000801-BAJEGIFH) discusses the types of information you can obtain about the current process. - [Task Management](Concepts/task.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000802-BBCJBDHC) discusses how to launch subprocesses and communicate with them. - [Signals](Articles/Signals.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40003929-SW1) discusses operating-system signals and their behavior in processes. - [Creating and Launching an NSTask](Tasks/createtask.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000803-BBCFGGAE) shows an example of using an `NSTask` object. - [Ending an NSTask](Tasks/endingtask.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000804-BAJGIHFH) discusses ways to detect when a task exits and how to terminate tasks before they are done. - [Piping Data Between Tasks](Tasks/pipes.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000805-BAJEEBAB) shows an example of how to move data from one task to another using pipes.

## Limitations

Some classes are available for either Objective-C or Java, but not both. The functionality of those classes, though, are provided elsewhere in the other language.

[Next](Concepts/host.html)

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