Just a quick question on that. Why do you need the child processes to die after they report? I wonder if it may be easier to fork off X children that handle input from the parents in a more generic way, do the work, report back the findings, and stay alive waiting for the next job to do. If you were sure you wanted the child to die then sometime in the future, you could obviously include a kill command to send it.

Just a thought. May or may not be any easier or cleaner. Just something I now think about with child processes now that I *have* to do it to make forked processes work with Perl/Tk. (see this node Re: IPC, trying for have child wait for commands)

Justin Eltoft

"If at all god's gaze upon us falls, its with a mischievous grin, look at him" -- Dave Matthews