maybe a few seconds, but certainly not minutes, isn't it?

The process will continue to exist in zombie state until all handles to it are closed. That includes the one the parent has in order to collect the child's exit code.

That particular handle is closed when you call wait/waitpid. If you don't call wait/waitpid for minutes after the child stopped running, the process is going to be a zombie for minutes.

In reply to Re^3: Testing whether a process has finished by ikegami
in thread Testing whether a process has finished by rovf

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