On 28/06/11 21:32, Alan Curry wrote: > Bob Proulx writes: >> >> P=E1draig Brady wrote: >>> Paul Eggert wrote: >>>> I'd like to have an option to 'timeout' so that >>>> it merely calls alarm(2) and then execs COMMAND. >>>> This would be simple and fast would avoid the problem >>>> in question. This approach has its own issues, but >>>> when it works it works great, and it'd be a nice option. >> >> I agree. It is nice and simple and well understood. >> >>> The main problem with that is would only send the signal to the >>> first process, and any processes it started would keep running. >> >> Then that is a problem for that parent process to keep track of its >> own children. It is a recursive situation. If all processes are well >> behaved then it works okay. And if you ask about processes that are >> not well behaved then my response would be to fix them so that they >> are better behaved. > > That sounds reasonable, but then if something is about to be killed by > timeout, there's reason to believe it's not behaving well at the moment. > Well think of a shell script that has started lots of processes. Many (most) will rely on signal propagation to the group to clean things up.
cheers, Pâdraig.