Question

Just wondering if some one could help me out. The problem I’m having is that I os.fork() to get several bits of information and send them to a file, but checking to see if the fork process is not working.

import sys
import time
import os
import re


ADDRESS  = argv[1]
sendBytes = argv[2]


proID2 = os.fork()
if proID2 == 0:
    os.system('ping -c 20 ' + ADDRESS + ' > testStuff2.txt')
    os._exit(0)

print proID2

finn = True
while finn == True:
time.sleep(1)
finn = os.path.exists("/proc/" + str(proID2))
print os.path.exists("/proc/" + str(proID2))
print 'eeup out of it ' + str(proID2)

I think that the os.path.exists() is maybe not the right thing to use.

Thanks.

Answer 1

To wait for the child process to terminate, use one of the os.waitXXX() functions, such as os.waitpid(). This method is reliable; as a bonus, it will give you the status information.