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Re: [wmx] I think there _is_ a problem w/ using SIGHUP to restart

J. J. Ramsey - Thu Aug 05 21:25:12 1999


> 
> But I still understand your argument against it.  After all, I think this
> is the kind of situation for which the SIGUSR signals were created.
> Perhaps it would be best to follow the Principle of Least Surprise here
> and see what other window managers use as a cue to reload themselves.
> 
> > (TM). In the case of wmx, if you use SIGHUP to restart, you will
> > probably end up stepping on something or do something that will confuse
> > another app. I believe that session managers, for one, use SIGHUP to
> > terminate the apps in an X session.
> >
> > SIGUSR1 is probably the appropriate signal to send to wmx to tell it to
> > restart. It's an application-defined signal that has no meaning other
> > than the one that the application gives it. It won't step on anything,
> > period.
> 
> Hmm.  I don't see how sending a HUP to wmx will force it to step on
> anything.  Will the signal necessarily get passed on to wmx's children?
> 

I don't mean "step on" in the sense of stepping on memory, processes, or
stuff like that which I admitted don't know much about. What I mean is
that if wmx uses SIGHUP in an unconventional way, it could cause bad
things to happen. For example, judging from some of the messages left on
my terminal after a GNOME session (I'm a former GNOME user), it seems
that gnome-session, at least, uses SIGHUP to terminate apps when the
session is through. If wmx restarted rather than terminated if given a
SIGHUP signal, it would perhaps keep the session from ending, or make
gnome-session crash, or something. I may not have the facts quite right
here, but this is the sort of problem I'd expect to see.

-- I am a fool for Christ. Mostly I am a fool. --


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