Update:What I wrote originally (below) is quite incorrect; the child process morphs into the exec'd process, retaining its PID and PPID. I had misconstrued some statements about exec in IPC::Open3. Many thanks++ to sgifford for the correction.

Why do you say the "child has become a zombie"? You've exec'd that process; it is not a child of the parent anymore. The actual child presumably dies peacefully after the exec (assuming the call to exec succeeds, which says nothing about the fate of the exec'd process) and gets reaped automatically when FROM_CHILD is closed.

If by "becoming a zombie" you mean that the exec'd process terminates abnormally, then all you need to do to avoid the idling is to time out the parent.

the lowliest monk

In reply to Re: Protection from zombies by tlm
in thread Protection from zombies by nomis80

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