NAME

killall - Kill all instances of a process by pattern matching the command-line

SYNOPSIS

        use Proc::Killall;
        killall('HUP', 'xterm'); # SIGHUP all xterms
        killall('KILL', '^netscape$'); # SIGKILL to "netscape"

DESCRIPTION

This module provides one function, "killall()", which takes two parameters: a signal name or number (see "kill()") and a process pattern. This pattern is matched against the process' command-line as the "ps" command would show it ("ps" is not used internally, instead a package called "Proc::ProcessTable" is used).

"killall" searches the process table and sends that signal to all processes which match the pattern. The return value is the number of processes that were successfully signaled. If any kills failed, the $! variable will be set based on that last one that failed (even if a successful kill happened afterward).

AUTHOR

Written in 2000 by Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com>

"Proc::Killall" is copyright 2000 by Aaron Sherman, and may be distributed under the same terms as Perl itself.

PREREQUISITES

"Proc::ProcessTable" is required for "Proc::Killall" to function.

SEE ALSO

perl, perlfunc, perlvar, Proc::ProcessTable