Comments on: using kill to see if a process is alive

By: Алексей

Алексей — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:21:50 +0000

... Хм ...

By: SuperMan

SuperMan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:58:20 +0000
... Спс ...

By: Shadow

Shadow — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:55:17 +0000
... Норм ...

By: Brock Noland

Brock Noland — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:38:50 +0000

What isn’t exactly correct?

I think is quite correct:

“exit code indicates if a signal may be sent

As such, it exits successfully if you may send an exit code, ie the process is alive.”

By: John

John — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:39:44 +0000

Not exactly correct. A process can be alive without you being able to send a signal to it.

If you are not the process own, process group owner, or root, then you cannot send a signal to it.

By: Wade

Wade — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:34:21 +0000

Well either way, I’m glad you brought it up. Thanks for the great tip!

By: Brock Noland

Brock Noland — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:36:06 +0000
Wade, Thanks for your comment. Its there, but you wouldn't know it unless you were looking for it: Particularly useful signals include HUP, INT, KILL, STOP, CONT, and 0. Further down, it says this regarding 0: exit code indicates if a signal may be sent As such, it exits successfully if you may send an exit code, ie the process is alive. I believe I read this in Advanced UNIX Programming, but I am not exactly sure. Its possible I read in the coreutils kill source. Brock

By: Wade

Wade — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:26:11 +0000

Brock –

I’m curious how you discovered the -0 for kill. I’ve never seen that in “kill -l”, kill(1), or signal(7)! Did you happen to find it by looking through the code, or by accident, or is it just something that I should know already?

Wade

By: Brock Noland

Brock Noland — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:45:47 +0000

That’s it, I think I am changing to LaTex.