forking and avoiding zombies!

[Jean-Michel Pichavant]

----- Original Message -----
> So I implemented a simple decorator to run a function in a forked
> process, as below.
> 
> It works well but the problem is that the childs end up as zombies on
> one machine, while strangely
> I can't reproduce the same on mine..
> 
> I know that this is not the perfect method to spawn a daemon, but I
> also wanted to keep the code
> as simple as possible since other people will maintain it..
> 
> What is the easiest solution to avoid the creation of zombies and
> maintain this functionality?
> thanks
> 
> 
> def on_forked_process(func):
>     from os import fork
>     """Decorator that forks the process, runs the function and gives
>     back control to the main process
>     """
>     def _on_forked_process(*args, **kwargs):
>         pid = fork()
>         if pid == 0:
>             func(*args, **kwargs)
>             _exit(0)
>         else:
>             return pid
> 
>     return _on_forked_process
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
> 

Ever though about using the 'multiprocessing' module? It's a slightly higher API and I don't have issues with zombie processes.
You can combine this with a multiprocess log listener so that all logs are sent to the main process.

See Vinay Sajip's code about multiprocessing and logging, http://plumberjack.blogspot.fr/2010/09/using-logging-with-multiprocessing.html

I still had to write some cleanup code before leaving the main process, but once terminate is called on all remaining subprocesses, I'm not left with zombie processes.
Here's the cleaning:

for proc in multiprocessing.active_children():
    proc.terminate()

JM


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