Perl kill Function



Description

This function sends a signal to a list of processes. Returns the number of processes successfully signaled.

If SIGNAL is zero, no signal is sent to the process. This is a useful way to check that a child process is alive and hasn't changed its UID. The precise list of signals supported is entirely dependent on the system implementation −

Name 		   Effect
SIGABRT		Aborts the process
SIGARLM		Alarm signal
SIGFPE		Arithmetic exception
SIGHUP 		Hang up.
SIGILL 		Illegal instruction
SIGINT 		Interrupt
SIGKILL 	 Termination signal
SIGPIPE 	 Write to a pipe with no readers.
SIGQUIT		Quit signal.
SIGSEGV		Segmentation fault
SIGTERM		Termination signal
SIGUSER1	 Application-defined signal 1
SIGUSER2	 Application-defined signal 2

Syntax

Following is the simple syntax for this function −

kill EXPR, LIST

Return Value

This function returns the number of processes successfully signaled.

Example

Following is the example code showing its basic usage −

#!/usr/bin/perl

$cnt = kill 0, getppid(), getpgrp(), 2000;

print "Signal sent to $cnt process\n";

When above code is executed, it produces the following result −

Signal sent to 2 process
perl_function_references.htm
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