levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (03/23/89)
(I tried to send this to the moderator of comp.sys.sun, but I am unsure whether it worked, so I am sending this to comp.unix.wizards too.) In the process of debugging some code which uses hardwired file descriptors on a Sun system, I discovered that suntools windows leave a number of extra file descriptors open, depending on what tool is running. For example, a shelltool leaves fd 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10 open; a cmdtool has 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 open. My question is, if an application running in these windows closes these descriptors, will it have any ill effect? Does it depend on what the application wants to do? If so, in what way? Thank you very much in advance, and I also apologize in advance if this has been asked before. -- Daniel R. Levy UNIX(R) mail: att!ttbcad!levy AT&T Bell Laboratories 5555 West Touhy Avenue Any opinions expressed in the message above are Skokie, Illinois 60077 mine, and not necessarily AT&T's.
guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) (03/25/89)
>My question is, if an application running in these windows closes these >descriptors, will it have any ill effect? If by "running in these windows" you mean "running in the terminal emulator in that window", you can close them and nothing evil will happen. SunView is obnoxiously sloppy about closing descriptors before running the shell in a tty or command subwindow, although it's not quite as obnoxious as the text/command subwindow's habit of not removing its temporary files when it exits.