Re: % FINDFILE: Error managing child process. [message #40258 is a reply to message #40238] |
Sat, 31 July 2004 03:21   |
Timm Weitkamp
Messages: 66 Registered: August 2002
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Karl,
This piece of information was *exactly* what I was looking for.
And it's also good news. Closes the thread, I think.
Cheers,
Timm
On 28.07.04 at 16:36 -0600, Karl Schultz wrote:
> It turns out that this is a known problem. Here's what is happening:
>
> FINDFILE launches child processes (using the same mechanism as SPAWN) to get
> file and directory information. The problem really has more to do with
> SPAWN itself and not FINDFILE, so you'll see the same issue anywhere else
> SPAWN is used.
>
> On Solaris, IDL 5.5 and versions prior to 5.5 used vfork() to spawn
> processes. IDL 5.6 (and 6.0) were changed to use fork() because we were led
> to believe that fork() was more suitable when some of the threading support
> was added in 5.6. It turns out that vfork() is really the method to use
> regardless of the threading, and so IDL 6.1 uses vfork() again. This means
> that your problem should go away with IDL 6.1.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Karl
>
> "Timm Weitkamp" <dont.try@this.address> wrote in message
> news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0407280954480.29421-100000@localhost.loca ldomain...
>> Thank you for all info and suggestions. It seems unlikely (though not
>> impossible) to me that a lack of swap space or other disk space should
>> cause my problem, as some of you have suggested.
>>
>> Given that there is plenty of swap space, even quite a bit of RAM left and
>> that the problem occurs only with 5.6 and higher, but not with 5.4, I tend
>> to think that it is an internal IDL problem.
>>
>> I will further investigate this thing when I have more time -- for the
>> time being I can live with it. Thanks again to all of you.
>>
>> Timm
--
Timm Weitkamp
Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
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