GNU bug report logs - #8938
make timeout and CTRL-C

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Message #47 received at 8938 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Alan Curry <pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org>
Cc: 8938 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
Subject: Re: bug#8938: make timeout and CTRL-C
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 22:16:07 +0100

On 28/06/11 21:32, Alan Curry wrote:
> Bob Proulx writes:
>>
>> P=E1draig Brady wrote:
>>> Paul Eggert wrote:
>>>> I'd like to have an option to 'timeout' so that
>>>> it merely calls alarm(2) and then execs COMMAND.
>>>> This would be simple and fast would avoid the problem
>>>> in question.  This approach has its own issues, but
>>>> when it works it works great, and it'd be a nice option.
>>
>> I agree.  It is nice and simple and well understood.
>>
>>> The main problem with that is would only send the signal to the
>>> first process, and any processes it started would keep running.
>>
>> Then that is a problem for that parent process to keep track of its
>> own children.  It is a recursive situation.  If all processes are well
>> behaved then it works okay.  And if you ask about processes that are
>> not well behaved then my response would be to fix them so that they
>> are better behaved.
> 
> That sounds reasonable, but then if something is about to be killed by
> timeout, there's reason to believe it's not behaving well at the moment.
> 
Well think of a shell script that has started lots of processes.
Many (most) will rely on signal propagation to the group
to clean things up.

cheers,
Pâdraig.

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