Re: Your opinion needed: Should GNU Parallel ignore, kill or wait for background children?

[Martin d'Anjou]

On 16-05-24 04:06 PM, Ole Tange wrote:
> GNU Make, which has a parallel feature, does not leak processes. GNU
> Parallel should not leak either.
> That, unfortunately, is not true. Try this Makefile:
>
> all:
>          bash -c "(sleep 100) &"
>
> make -j will finish immediately - leaking the sleep process. This is
> again because the user did not wait for the child process:
>
> all:
>          bash -c "(sleep 100) & wait"
>
> which has no leak.

Ah, thanks for correcting me. I had forgotten that. The same can happen 
when calling OpenLava bsub from GNU Make or GNU Parallel.

> - o -
>
> The more I discuss this with you the more I am starting to be
> convinced that it is the user's job to do the wait - not GNU Parallel.

I see it the same way as you now. It remains under the control of the 
user to detach and wait, or to not detach at all. So I guess there is no 
need to support anything special.

Best,
Martin