UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Absolutely. Whenever you want to delete a file which might be written to by a running process instead of "rm file" use

Code:

cat /dev/null > /path/to/file

which will shorten it to 0 bytes length but retain the inode. The result is the same file with its contents removed instead of a new file with the same name as the old one.

If a program honors a signal depends on how it was written. "Well-behaving" programs (that is: ones which are written like Unix programs are meant to be written) do so, but not every programmer adheres to some informal standard. You will have to find out for every specific program yourself if it is the case or not.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Being a bit nit-picky: It's not sending "a" signal, but it needs to be THE signal that has been reserved for that function. This is dependent on what the programmer felt like; usually it is mentioned in the man page. Different signals can serve for different functions.

You are right, my bad. I intended to write "such a signal", but skipped a word. Thanks for correcting that.

bakunin