*BSD News Article 79741


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From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin)
Subject: Re: What is a zombie?
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References: <52jtk1$8s@uriah.heep.sax.de> <52ogk7$sg3@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> <52pgcp$d93@uriah.heep.sax.de>
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 13:23:00 GMT
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In article <52pgcp$d93@uriah.heep.sax.de> joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) writes:

>> On a POSIX machine, ignoring SIGCHLD will automatically reap
>> child-processes.

This is the system V behaviour, so it may well be POSIX too.  It's long
been a pitfall for portability.

>SIGCHLD is already ignored by default.  Why should ignoring it twice
>have any other effect?

Because system V sucks?  This is from the Solaris 2 man page:

     If any of the above functions  are  used  to  set  SIGCHLD's
     disposition   to   SIG_IGN,   the  calling  process's  child
     processes will not create zombie processes  when  they  ter-
     minate  (see  exit(2)).

-- Richard
--
"Nothing can stop me now... except microscopic germs"