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From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Suggestion for kill command.
Message-ID: <126260@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 12 Oct 89 23:37:45 GMT
References: <26736@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> <7877@cbmvax.UUCP> <1989Oct7.091824.8541@csusac.csus.edu>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
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In article <1989Oct7.091824.8541@csusac.csus.edu> (W. David Rohwer) writes:
>I have a suggestion for the next version of the OS.  Can you include 
>a command to kill a process like the UNIX kill command?  It would make it
>easier for me to free up resources if a program goes out to lunch.  Also, it
>would prevent me from doing a warm reboot of my machine. 

Q1) How do you know what resources your program has to free ?

Q2) How do you know that your program hasn't given those resources away
    to another program?

Q3) Are you sure your program hasn't unsuspectingly written all over some
    other programs stack ?

Q4) If you program isn't looking for a Break signal now, how would a "kill"
    command send it one ?

Basically Dave it is a common request and it isn't truely possible given the
architecture of the OS. If you are using Lattice C, then one thing you can
do is start up CPR, attach to your run away program and either force it to
exit or disable it so that it won't screw anything else up. In either
event if it is just stuck in an endless loop just ignore it. (You can 
use SetTaskPri() to lower it's priority to -50 or so and keep it from 
affecting any other tasks.)


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
"If I were driving a Macintosh, I'd have to stop before I could turn the wheel."