Re: [dwm] dwm-5.3

2008/12/7 Neale Pickett <neale_AT_woozle.org>:
> Guillaume Quintin <coincoin169g_AT_gmail.com> writes:
>
>> But now, when I reinstall dwm-5.2 I get the same problem than in
>> dwm-5.3 and dwm-5.3.1, "double-fork", "simple-fork" and
>> re-"double-fork". I don't understand why.
>
> This makes me happy, not only because my spawn function wasn't the
> problem, but also because I can feel again like I know how Unix works :)
>
> I now think it is the open file descriptor causing the problem. The
> SIGCHLD or double-fork would both cause this behavior; the problem is
> that the shell running .xinitrc is waiting for an EOF on the pipe it
> created for STD(IN|OUT|ERR), and is never getting it because you still
> have some X clients with it open.

Afair running exec dwmstatus in .xinitrc should delegate this issue to
dwmstatus, because the problem of running some loop | dwm in .xinitrc
existed since the very first dwm version and there is no real solution
to this problem unless the feed process is replaced by something more
appropriate which uses a fifo redirection.

> I advise against closing STDOUT or STDERR in the spawn function: that's
> how error messages make it in to .xsession-errors.

So far it was only about closing stdin.

I don't like the alternatives very much, I dislike popen() some status
feed process, or creating a fifo, or reading from some status text
file, or using X properties (like larsremote). Reading from stdin in
dwm is the simpliest and most elegant solution imho.

Kind regards,
--Anselm
Received on Sun Dec 07 2008 - 11:06:59 UTC