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From: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Does a zombie have a "valid pid"
Message-ID: <14276:May2508:53:0790@stealth.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 25 May 90 08:53:07 GMT
References: <639@mecky.UUCP> <1990May25.001614.23294@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Distribution: usa
Organization: IR
Lines: 13

In article <1990May25.001614.23294@athena.mit.edu> jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
> In article <639@mecky.UUCP>, walter@mecky.UUCP (Walter Mecky) writes:
> |> I think, a process in zombie state has no "valid pid" and kill(2) should
> |> return -1. Am I wrong ?
>   Yes.  A zombie process is still a process, even if it's in a weird
> state.  As long as that's true, it's still going to have a PID
> associated with it, and therefore signals sent to it are going to work.

You're correct up to the last phrase. Signals sent to it aren't going to
``work,'' in the sense that they won't invoke the usual signal handler;
QUIT won't dump a zombie. They'll be delivered, but they won't work.

---Dan