On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:37:18 GMT, Brian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>From one script, I'm spawnv'ing another that will launch mpg123 to play a
> specified mp3. Problem is that After the second script has launched
> mpg123, it'll turn into a zombie process. It doesn't happen when I launch
> it from the command line, so there's something wrong with the way I'm
> calling it (I believe).
>
> mp3pid = os.spawnv(os.P_NOWAIT, "/oter/playfile.py", ["playfile", filename,
> "0"])
>
> Shouldn't this launch the script without waiting for it to finish?
Yes. But since you told it not to wait on the child process, you
are now responsible for waiting on it. Child processes are zombies
until their parent "reaps" them. This is done with the wait()
function:
pid, status = os.wait()
or the waitpid() function:
pid, status = os.waitpid(mp3pid, options)
Of course, both of these block. When a child process exits, the parent
receives SIGCHLD. You could install a signal handler for this and only
call os.wait/pid() then. Of course, signal delivery is unreliable, so
this could still leave you with zombie processes. You could use
os.waitpid() with the WNOHANG option to prevent it from blocking and call
it periodically. This would leave you with a zombie for a short while, but
then clean it up. You could combine signal handling and polling to completely
minimize the time the zombie exists.
You could also use something other than os.spawnv(). The new subprocess
module may have something that simplifies this (I haven't looked at it in
detail yet). Twisted's spawnProcess() might also be worth a look, as it
does take care of waiting at the appropriate time.
Jp
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
