Accumulating <defunct> children in vi (SCO UNIX V.3.2.0)

[Tom Neff]

In article <269 at happym.wa.com> irv at happym.wa.com (Irving Wolfe) writes:
>I frequently pipe a paragraph out from vi when I'm writing to a reformatter we
>wrote that adjusts the line lengths and fixes word spacing when possible.
>This has always worked fine.
>
>Tonight I was doing it and after awhile the system ate my text and replaced it
>with "No more processes."  ...

Right.  Nothing specific to SCO UNIX about that.  It's a bug in the
editor -- it doesn't close its pipes properly, so every buffer-filter
operation leaves a defunct process.  The only solution is to close your
file and exit the editor now and then.

If you run into the problem a lot and have the luxury of administering
your own system, you can raise NPROCS a little to give yourself some
breathing room.

-- 
The most common given name in the world is Mohammad; | Tom Neff 
the most common family name in the world is Chang.   |
Can you imagine the enormous number of people in the | tneff at bfmny0.BFM.COM
world named Mohammad Chang? -- Derek Wills           | uunet!bfmny0!tneff