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From: lcc.richard@locus.ucla.edu (Richard Mathews)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: UNIX question
Message-ID: <697@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 14-Dec-85 17:20:06 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.697
Posted: Sat Dec 14 17:20:06 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 05:18:52 EST
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There have been several responses to this which indicated that zombies can
be cleaned up by having the parent call wait(2) (or in Berkeley compatible
systems, wait3(2)).  Under System V there is an alternate method that can
be used.  If the parent ignores SIGCLD, then the manual states that "the
calling process's child processes will not create zombie processes when
they terminate" (see signal(2)).  In reality (at least on a VAX) they do
create zombies, but the parent automatically cleans them up.  The effect is
the same.

Richard M. Mathews
Locus Computing Corporation		       lcc.richard@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
					       lcc.richard@UCLA-CS
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