Orphaned child processes

[rocco.rossi@gmail.com]

I'm using the Python processing module. I've just run into a problem
though. Actually, it's a more general problem that isn't specific to
this module, but to the handling of Unix (Linux processes) in general.
Suppose for instance that for some reason or another, after forking
several child processes, the main process terminates or gets killed
(or segfaults or whatever) and the child processes are orphaned. Is
there any way to automatically arrange things so that they auto-
terminate or, in other words, is there a way to make the child
processes terminate when the parent terminates?

Thank you.

[John Nagle]

Re: Orphaned child processes

rocco.rossi@gma il.com wrote:

I'm using the Python processing module. I've just run into a problem
though. Actually, it's a more general problem that isn't specific to
this module, but to the handling of Unix (Linux processes) in general.
Suppose for instance that for some reason or another, after forking
several child processes, the main process terminates or gets killed
(or segfaults or whatever) and the child processes are orphaned. Is
there any way to automatically arrange things so that they auto-
terminate or, in other words, is there a way to make the child
processes terminate when the parent terminates?
>
Thank you.

Put a thread in the child which reads stdin, and make stdin
connect to a pipe from the parent. When the parent terminates,
the child will get a SIGPIPE error and raise an exception.

John Nagle

[Donn Cave]

Re: Orphaned child processes

In article <47fa650f$0$363 29$742ec2ed@new s.sonic.net>,
John Nagle <nagle@animats. comwrote:

rocco.rossi@gma il.com wrote:

I'm using the Python processing module. I've just run into a problem
though. Actually, it's a more general problem that isn't specific to
this module, but to the handling of Unix (Linux processes) in general.
Suppose for instance that for some reason or another, after forking
several child processes, the main process terminates or gets killed
(or segfaults or whatever) and the child processes are orphaned. Is
there any way to automatically arrange things so that they auto-
terminate or, in other words, is there a way to make the child
processes terminate when the parent terminates?

Thank you.

>
Put a thread in the child which reads stdin, and make stdin
connect to a pipe from the parent. When the parent terminates,
the child will get a SIGPIPE error and raise an exception.
>
John Nagle

That could work, but not precisely in that manner. You get
SIGPIPE when you write to a closed pipe. When you read from one,
you get end of file, i.e., a normal return with 0 bytes.

When you test it, make sure to try a configuration with more
than one child process. Since the parent holds the write end
of the pipe, subsequently forked child processes could easily
inherit it, and they'll hold it open and spoil the effect.

Donn Cave, donn@u.washingt on.edu