meaning of "child processes are reaped"

[bernd]

Hello folks,

not very experienced with interprocess communication and not a native
English speaker I would like to know what the meaning of the expression
"child processes are reaped" is. I encountered it in connection with
Perl's waitpid-function.

Could somebody explain this term?

Cheers


Bernd

 

[anno4000]

Hello folks,

not very experienced with interprocess communication and not a native
English speaker I would like to know what the meaning of the expression
"child processes are reaped" is. I encountered it in connection with
Perl's waitpid-function.

Could somebody explain this term?

Under Unix, when a process exits while its parent process is still
active, the process doesn't go away entirely. The entry in the process
table is kept around containing the exit status and CPU time consumed.
The parent process can access this information through the wait() and
waitpid() commands. Only then, or when the parent process exits itself,
is the process entry released entirely.

This procedure is likened to the mythical situation after a person's
death. The deceased's soul hangs around as a zombie until Death
(the Grim Reaper) comes and takes care of it. Thus the term "reaper"
for the procedure that calls waitpid() on the PIDs of finished child
processes.

Anno

 

[bernd]

Hi Anno,

thank You for the detailed and plastically explanation. Brings me
further ;-)

Cheers


Bernd