Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!husc6!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Avoiding <exiting> processes on Ultrix
Message-ID: <10012@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 9 Apr 89 01:50:49 GMT
References: <520@pan.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 19

In article <520@pan.UUCP> jw@pan.UUCP (Jamie Watson) writes:
>Is there any way under Ultrix (2.0 or later) to write a C program
>such that any child processes created by that program will exit,
>without hanging in an <exiting> status until the parent does a wait()
>for the child?  Under SysV this is done with signal(SIGCLD, SIG_IGN);
>I have tried that under Ultrix, to no avail.

Ugh!  NEVER use the SIGCLD kludge!

To create a child that will not become a long-lived zombie:

	if ( fork() == 0 )
		if ( fork() == 0 )
			exec( whatever );
		else
			_exit( 0 );

Since the grandchild has no parent, whenever it terminates it will
be reaped by the "init" special process.