run function in separate process

[malkarouri at gmail.com]

After playing a little with Alex's function, I got to:

import os, cPickle
def run_in_separate_process_2(f, *args, **kwds):
    pread, pwrite = os.pipe()
    pid = os.fork()
    if pid > 0:
        os.close(pwrite)
        with os.fdopen(pread, 'rb') as f:
            status, result = cPickle.load(f)
        os.waitpid(pid, 0)
        if status == 0:
            return result
        else:
            raise result
    else:
        os.close(pread)
        try:
            result = f(*args, **kwds)
            status = 0
        except Exception, exc:
            result = exc
            status = 1
        with os.fdopen(pwrite, 'wb') as f:
            try:
                cPickle.dump((status,result), f,
cPickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)
            except cPickle.PicklingError, exc:
                cPickle.dump((2,exc), f, cPickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)
        f.close()
        os._exit(0)


It handles exceptions as well, partially. Basically the child process
returns a status code as well as a result. If the status is 0, then
the function returned successfully and its result is returned. If the
status is 1, then the function raised an exception, which will be
raised in the parent. If the status is 2, then the function has
returned successfully but the result is not picklable, an exception is
raised.
Exceptions such as SystemExit and KeyboardInterrupt in the child are
not checked and will result in an EOFError in the parent.

Any comments?

Regards,

Muhammad