Night of the Living Dead Processes

[This System]

In article <10927 at s.ms.uky.edu> sean at ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes:
[edited for television]
-I'm having problems with Zombies...
 
-Unfortunately, the programs in question have one or more INET sockets
-open, and the child inherits the descriptors. When the child exits, some
-part of the connection hangs, and the child wakes from the dead, goes out,
-and eats brains. That is, it becomes <defunct>.

Are you doing a wait() in the parent process? (It wasn't in the code fragment.)
If the process is <defunct>, then it's waiting to be waited for. If the problem
were the sockets not being closed, then the process would be <exiting>.

I might have my brain screwed in backwards today, but I'm pretty sure I haven't
gotten them mixed up.

--
Mark Buda                                Domain: hermit at chessene.uucp
Dumb: ...rutgers!bpa!vu-vlsi!devon!chessene!hermit
"Here, with a compressed air drill, parsnips are harvested." - an old newsreel