Getting rid of a <defunct> process

[Kory Hamzeh]

I have written an application which forks and execs off many subtasks.
The main process (the parent which does all of the forks) can not
do a wait() because I can't get blocked for anything. Well, this results
in a lot of "<defunct>" processes in the process table when the child
exits.

Is there any way to get rid of these processes? If not, will they take
up any core space? I assume they will take up a slot in the process table.

A short term solution would be to keep a list of all of the pids which
where created and occasionaly do a kill(pid, 0) to see if the process is
still alive. If not, then do a wait().

The OS that I am using is XENIX/386 System V Version 2.3.1.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
kory


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Kory Hamzeh			    UUCP:     ..!uunet!psivax!quad1!avatar!kory
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