[NCLUG] Bashing lost children

[Michael Dwyer]

Tkil wrote:
> 
> >>>>> "Michael" == Michael Dwyer <mdwyer at sixthdimension.com> writes:
> 
> Michael> Well... except in a case like this:
> 
> Michael>   sleep 30 | logger &
> Michael>   echo $! >/var/run/sleep.pid
> 
> Michael> it stores the PID of 'logger' instead of sleep...  Argh.
> 
> the first solution that comes to mind is something like this:
> 
> | $ perl -we 'open(PID, ">/var/run/$ARGV[0].pid") &&
> |             print(PID "$$\n") &&
> |             close(PID) &&
> |             exec(@ARGV);' sleep 20 | logger &

Well, I almost pulled out my old "build your own shell" homework to
solve this one... but I found a slightly more elegant solution -- use
'ash' instead of 'bash'.  Ash has a 'jobid' builtin that is a little
better behaved than the $! construct.  It outputs the PIDs of all the
immediate children -- both sleep and logger!  On top of that, I save a
little memory, too!  Yay!

Thanks again for your help... Your answers were well above and beyond
the call!