From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2006-07-12T10:49:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Processes and Portability

Name Name wrote:
> I would like to run a process concurrently (thus if the process goes to 
> sleep or runs forever, I can still run other code from my main process) 
> and have all standard out of that process be put into a text file.  I 
> would also like this code to be portable.  And finally, I would like to 
> be able to kill this process at any time (So I will need the pid)

I was half expecting the following to work, but it doesn't:

   t = Thread.new do
     system "sleep 100000"   # or IO.popen or fork...
   end

   puts "press return to stop child thread"
   gets

   t.kill

   puts `ps -Af | grep sleep`
   Process.wait  # still waiting for child until ^C

Killing a thread that is waiting on system() doesn't stop the child process.

Should this be part of the Thread abstraction? Should threads own 
processes? Maybe not. Just wondering what people think...

-- 
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407