Wikipedia: History of Zombie process

Difference (from prior major revision) (minor diff, author diff)

Changed: 1c1

A zombie process is a process that exists but has completed execution. A zombie process cannot be destroyed because it is the parent of one or more [child process]?es.

A zombie process is a term in computing which defines a process that exists but which has completed execution. A zombie process usually cannot be destroyed because it is the parent of one or more [child process]?es.

Changed: 3c3

The term zombie process comes from the unix operating system. It takes its meaning from the common definition of zombie--a walking dead person.

The term zombie process comes from the unix operating system. It takes its meaning from the common definition of zombie--a walking dead person. In Unix, the most common cause of a zombie, is where the process has exitted, but it's parent process has not yet done a "wait" system call for it. The book-keeping information for the zombie has to be retained so it can eventually be supplied to the parent when it does "wait". Typically, zombies that exist for more than a short period of time indicate a bug somewhere. The kind of zombie mentioned in the first paragraph does not occur in Unix and similar systems.

	Revision 4 . . (edit) October 29, 2001 6:18 pm by (logged).37.81.xxx [brief discussion of Unix zombies.]
	Revision 3 . . October 29, 2001 2:54 pm by Sjc
	Revision 2 . . (edit) October 29, 2001 10:31 am by Koyaanis Qatsi
	Revision 1 . . October 29, 2001 10:25 am by (logged).240.35.xxx [initial stub def]