[Webware-discuss] spawnvpe and zombies

[Michael E. <men...@ka...>]

Hello,

I have an application where there is a way for a user to run a separate  
scheduling application from the web interface.   So I have code like:
proc_id =  
os.spawnvpe(os.P_NOWAIT,'python',['python','/usr/local/webapp/ 
scheduler/Scheduler.py', client_id], os.environ)

This works fine for launching the python instance and it runs correctly  
but after the Scheduler.py application exits, there is a zombie process  
remaining. After several days and multiple runs of this process I have  
this:

ps aux
mengelha     20468   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z+   31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     20471   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z+   31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     20531   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     20540   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21114   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21126   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21194   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21213   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21226   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21502   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21506   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21515   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     21526   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     22767   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     22785   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     22799   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)
mengelha     23181   0.0  0.0        0      0 con- Z    31Dec69    
0:00.00  (python)

I'm running on OS X 10.2.6.

I've never actually used the os.spawnvpe functions before so I'm not  
really sure what to expect although I did see some posts on usenet  
regarding similar problems.

When I stop AppServer, the zombies all go away.

I'm wondering if this is the correct way to spawn processes or not and  
if it is then is it  normal that these  zombie processes are created.    
I also have no idea why the date is 31Dec69???

Thanks for any help.

Mike