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

Recently, I came across this zombie problem due to my python script. The actual problem was mainly due to killing of the subprocess and the parent process doesn't know that the child is dead. So what I did was, just adding popen.communicate() after the kill signal of child process so that the parent process comes to know that the child is dead, then the kernel updates the pid of the childprocess since the child is no more and so there is no zombies formed now.

PS:poll is also an option here since it checks and conveys about the child status to the parent. Often in subprocess it is better if u use check_output or call if u need not communicate with the stdout and stdin.