Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!ames!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com
From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5
Subject: Re: vi(1) bug - defunct processes
Message-ID: <40648@sgi.SGI.COM>
Date: 19 Aug 89 18:35:44 GMT
References: <14562@bfmny0.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@sgi.SGI.COM
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 24

In article <14562@bfmny0.UUCP>, tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
> To heck with mailx(1), this is worse.

Ha!  Nothing is worse than mailx(1), unless you like gratuitous,
egregiously wrong features and stupid new bugs.  I wish BSD would (could?)
release 4.3BSD Mail source as they have done with the network code.

> 	AT&T UNIX System V/386 3.2.1
> [describes vi's failure to reap its dead children after ! operator]
>           The processes
> cannot be killed while 'vi' is still running, even with signal 9 from
> root.  Only exiting vi fixes it.
> "We walked on the moon --	((	Tom Neff
> 	you be polite"		 )) 	tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET

In ISC 2.0.2 doing something with :! such as  ":!sh" or ":!ls" seems to
cause vi to do the necessary wait(2)'s.  That is, after "!" becomes dead,
":!ls" makes everything wonderful again.

The bug was in Microport 2.2-3.0e, and is in the SVR3.2 source tape, so
it is not surprising to find it in AT&T's retail product.

Vernon Schryver
vjs@sgi.com