I've been researching perl and forking, and it seems like I'm doing everything correct, however my program doesn't seem to reap all the child processes, resulting in a bunch of zombies accumulating. The code has a master program, and then it looks like the zombies are being created in a supporting library. Sometimes Zombies are created using this subroutine, other times not. Other users of the program don't have any zombie issues, but my system does. I have no idea where to go, so I'd really appreciate any insight or suggestions that anyone can provide: 

----------------------------------------
main.pl

    require 'library.pl';

    $SIG{CHLD} = \&child_death;



sub child_death {

    use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";
    local ($!, $?);

    my $pid;
    do {
        $pid = waitpid( -1, WNOHANG );
        print "reaped $pid" . ($? ? " with exit $?" : '') . "\n";

    } until $pid <= 0;

}
----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------
library.pl

&print_socket_fork_unix( $socket, $html, $close );

sub print_socket_fork_unix {
    my ( $socket, $html, $close ) = @_;

    my $pid = fork;
    if    ( $? == -1  ) { 
        print "$pid - Can't launch child: $!\n"; 
    } elsif ( $? & 0x7F ) { 
        print "$pid - Child killed by signal ".( $? & 0x7F )."\n"; 
    } elsif ( $? >> 8   ) { 
        print "$pid - Child exited with error ".( $? >> 8 )."\n"; 
    } else { 
        print "$pid - Child executed successfully\n"; 
    }
    if ( defined $pid && $pid == 0 ) {
        print $socket $html;
        $socket->shutdown(2) if $close;
        $socket->close unless $close;
        print "$pid exiting process\n"; 

        &POSIX::_exit(0)

    } else {
        shutdown( $socket, 0 );   
        print " $pid shutdown socket\n"; 
    }
}
----------------------------------------

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In reply to Partial Zombie collection?? by h1234

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