UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

We have written a bare bones scheduling app using bash scripts. The input to the scheduler is from a mainframe scheduling tool, and the scripts exit code is returned to the MF. The problem is that every now and again I have a script that does not complete and this is left in my Q. I am in the process of writing a clean up script that would run every now and again to find these rogue scripts and clean them out of my running Q. When executing the script I store the PID. The heart of my cleanup script is to determine if the PID is still active.

I have tried various methods to determine this including ps -p $id and kill -0 $id, but none seems to give me the result I require. I understand that the kill option might not work if I am not the process owner and I have read all the documentation on the ps command, but I can not find an answer to my question.

My script looks like this currently:

Code:

  for file in *     # Check all entries in the 'Running' directory
  do
    if [ -f $file ]
    then

      Pidfl="${dir2}/${file}.pid"    #Set up file that contains PID

      Pidfl2="${dir1}/${file}"

      if [ -f $Pidfl ]         #If the PID file is still in the directory
      then
        Act_Proc=`cat ${Pidfl}`  #Get the PID contained in the file
        echo "$ACT_Proc"
        if kill -0 $ACT_Proc = 0  ####### how do I check if it is still active?:(
          then 
            echo "Now in removing ${file}"
#            mail_remove()
          fi
      else   #no PID found, remove from Q 
        echo "Now in removing ${file}"
#        mail_remove()
      fi
    fi 
  done

ps pidnumber should return success if the process is alive and failure if the process is dead. It also prints text so redirect to /dev/null.