killing a script

[Russ P.]

I have a Python (2.6.x) script on Linux that loops through many
directories and does processing for each. That processing includes
several "os.system" calls for each directory (some to other Python
scripts, others to bash scripts).

Occasionally something goes wrong, and the top-level script just keeps
running with a stack dump for each case. When I see that, I want to
just kill the whole thing and fix the bug. However, when I hit Control-
C, it apparently just just kills whichever script happens to be
running at that instant, and the top level script just moves to the
next line and keeps running. If I hit Control-C repeatedly, I
eventually get "lucky" and kill the top-level script. Is there a
simple way to ensure that the first Control-C will kill the whole darn
thing, i.e, the top-level script? Thanks.

--Russ P.