Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!unido!pcsbst!jh
From: jh@pcsbst
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Re: wait3 emulation in SYSTEMV ?? - (nf)
Message-ID: <4200008@pcsbst.UUCP>
Date: 1 Feb 88 09:59:00 GMT
References: <579@xyzzy.UUCP>
Lines: 22
Nf-ID: #R:xyzzy:-57900:pcsbst:4200008:000:741
Nf-From: pcsbst!jh    Feb  1 10:59:00 1988

Ok, flame me!

Indeed, SRV[32] allows killing of a zombi process (see AT&T code).
This is not what I expected, maybe I got mixed up with some BSD
code. Excuse me for the noise.
Thus, my suggestion of a pseudo-wait3() has to go to /dev/null.

However, looking some more into the code, one finds that the
process group of a zombi process is set to 0 (surprise?!).
Which leads me to the conclusion that if a processes indead
calls setprgp() you can test its state by

	kill (-childpid, 0)

provided that the process did not create some children
which did not call setpgrp().

Having burned may fingers once, I do no suggest any scheme based on this
fact. However, one question: where is the consistency here?!

	Johannes Heuft
	unido!pcsbst!jh