Final answer:
When executing a receive primitive, the process may immediately continue if the message is available or block/wait if the message is not yet received, which is vital for inter-process communication.
Step-by-step explanation:
When a receive primitive is executed in a process within the context of computer networking or operating systems, there are two possibilities:
- The message that the process is attempting to receive is already in the mailbox, in which case the process continues execution without delay.
- The message is not yet available, leading to the process either blocking and waiting for the message to arrive or returning immediately with a failure status, depending on the design of the communication protocol.
The behavior of a receive primitive is crucial in understanding inter-process communication and designing robust concurrent systems.