From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Harald Hanche-Olsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Zombie subprocesses Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2012 22:49:45 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <20121123.224945.1073064997137716859.hanche@math.ntnu.no> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1353707394 31957 80.91.229.3 (23 Nov 2012 21:49:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 23 Nov 2012 21:49:54 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Nov 23 22:50:04 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Tc18O-00008M-Bz for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 23 Nov 2012 22:50:04 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55087 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Tc18D-0005D5-O7 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:49:53 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:40772) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Tc18B-0005Cz-7c for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:49:52 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Tc18A-0007Al-CI for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:49:51 -0500 Original-Received: from hylle01.itea.ntnu.no ([129.241.56.100]:41107) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Tc18A-0007Ab-5T for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:49:50 -0500 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by hylle01.itea.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTP id 239E81AFD1E for ; Fri, 23 Nov 2012 22:49:44 +0100 (CET) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at hylle01.itea.ntnu.no Original-Received: from localhost (188.69.202.84.customer.cdi.no [84.202.69.188]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: hanche) by hylle01.itea.ntnu.no (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id B1CA41AFD10; Fri, 23 Nov 2012 22:49:43 +0100 (CET) X-URL: http://www.math.ntnu.no/~hanche/ X-Mailer: Mew version 6.5 on Emacs 24.3.50 / Mule 6.0 (HANACHIRUSATO) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 129.241.56.100 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:155045 Archived-At: I recently discovered that emacs has a bunch of zombie subprocesses. A bit of experimenting reveals that if I run (call-process "/bin/sleep" nil 0 nil "5") then this returns immediately, as expected, but after 5 seconds, the subprocess becomes a zombie and never goes away. Is this the intended behaviour, or a bug? Should I file a bug report? This is on OS X 10.8.2, Emacs built from trunk a couple weeks ago. (I use this technique to start external viewers for various types of files. But the program I use the most forks on its own, so I can easily replace the argument 0 by nil and avoid the problem. But I thought it worth reporting anyhow.) - Harald