Perl wait issue

PMP · 10-19-2011, 09:54 AM

I have a perl module in which I am trying to do some clean up activity in the END block. But prior to do this cleanup activity, I would like to wait for all the child(ren) of the process using this Module.

So I did something like

Code:

END {
  my $pid = wait; 
   
  #### Do the clean up stuff here
 
}

The issue I am facing here is that call to wait is setting up the status var ($?) to -1 in case there are no child of the current process. Which is in line with the definition of wait in man 2.

Is there a way I can ignore this setting of $? by wait ?

NevemTeve · 10-20-2011, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PMP

Is there a way I can ignore this setting of $?

It is very easy to ignore the value of a variable... or I don't understand your question.

SecretCode · 10-20-2011, 07:05 AM

I'm not sure I understand the need to ignore $? either. You can just reassign it to give the exit code you want:

Code:

$? = 0;

But I'm concerned about the wait logic: could you have more than one child process? wait will return when any child process ends - and in other cases as well. You probably want something more like

Code:

while (wait() != -1) {}