I think the answer to the original question is even simpler:
if( $pid ){
    # we are the parent:
    sleep 3; say kill 0 => $pid;
    waitpid $pid => 0;
} else {
    # we are the child:
    exit;
}

[download]
The child immediately does an "exit" - so where's the mystery?

One world, one people

In reply to Re: Check if forked process is dead by anonymized user 468275
in thread Check if forked process is dead by petr999

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