Re: Defunct Processes

[Jan-Benedict Glaw <jbglaw@lug-owl.de>]

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On Tue, 2004-12-28 21:13:56 -0500, Darren Sessions <dsessions@ionosphere.net>
wrote in message <BDF77D14.1AE7%dsessions@ionosphere.net>:
> The application I'm working on right now gets called from another
> application. When my program is finished, I just use exit(0); to quit, but
> if I do a ps there are a ton of [applicationname] <defunct> messages.

This is a fault of the calling application. Your program became a
zombie. That's the remaining rest of a process that already finished.
(Basically, it consists of accounting information, the process' exit
value and probably of the signal number that led to the process' death).

This information needs to be handled (the parent process needs to wait()
or wait4() it, or using other methods). Normally, the parent process
should handle the SIGCHLD signal; it's generated upon a child's death.
This would allow the parent to call wait() as long as there are finished
childs (remember, you only know the signal got fired, but you don't know
how often :)  Calling wait() then will finally bury the finished child.

MfG, JBG

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