Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!ubc-cs!alberta!ccu!mills
From: mills@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gary Mills)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Sys V fork IS broken!
Message-ID: <1990Jul31.030138.14164@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Date: 31 Jul 90 03:01:38 GMT
References: <573@oglvee.UUCP> <13435@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1990Jul28.195032.18746@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <13447@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Lines: 14

gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:

>In article <1990Jul28.195032.18746@watdragon.waterloo.edu> tbray@watsol.waterloo.edu (Tim Bray) writes:
>>  if ((child = fork()) == -1)
>>    FatalSystemError("Serious system trouble! Can't create process!");

>The bug is that your application makes no attempt to recover from a known
>class of error, EAGAIN in this case.  I would say the same thing about a

My old Sys V manual says EAGAIN is also set by fork when the limits on total
number of processes would be exceeded.  I don't think you would normally
want to retry in this case.  Issuing a message and exiting would be better.
-- 
-Gary Mills-             -University of Manitoba-             -Winnipeg-