Re: inotify and /proc/<pid>

[Al Viro <viro@ftp.linux.org.uk>]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 10:31:13PM -0500, Joseph Pingenot wrote:
> >From Joseph Pingenot on Monday, 30 July, 2007:
> >From Al Viro on Tuesday, 31 July, 2007:
> >>On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 09:16:16PM -0500, Joseph Pingenot wrote:
> >>> I was trying to use inotify to watch process changes (especially process
> >>>   termination) by watching /proc/<pid>.
> >>> Sadly, although I could see something reading various files, nothing
> >>>   was issued when the process I was watching exited and the directory
> >>>   went away.
> >>> Is this intentional, or a bug?
> >>It's a bug you intend to introduce in your program...  IOW, don't
> >>do that.
> >More background, please?
> >What's the way to check for a process exiting without spinning?
> 
> I should also specify that the process being waited on is not a
>   child process-it's just some other process on the system.

Umm...  Any details on intended use?  IOW, is that "I want to write
an utility that would wait for given PID to exit, just for the hell
of it" or is there something you are trying to implement using that?