how to kill (or avoid) zombie processes with subprocess module

Question

When I kick off a python script from within another python script using the subprocess module, a zombie process is created when the subprocess \"completes\". I am unable to

Answer 1

If you delete the subprocess object, using del to force garbage collection, that will cause the subprocess object to be deleted and then the defunct processes will go away without terminating your interpreter. You can try this out in the python command line interface first.