Women in Technology

Article:		Start Me Up: Writing and Understanding OS X StartupItems
Subject:		Stop
Date:		2003-10-23 08:38:37
From:		anonymous2
Response to: Stop
Why would you have to specifically shutdown one item? I'm no expert but I think that a shutdown in unix kills all running processes. That would include the Tomcat server, Apache, MySql etc. It would be kind of redundant to write a specific shutdown item when shutting down the system.

Showing messages 1 through 2 of 2.

• Stop
  2003-10-23 08:52:00  Andrew Anderson | [View]
  
  
  Killing a process is not the best way to stop a process because it does not take into account the processes state.
  
  For instance:
  I have mysql running and I am in the midst of an insert, OS X (or the user) kills the process, does the data get inserted correctly ? What part of the insert did it stop in the middle of ? Did half of the insert work ?
  
  Same can happen in Apache or Tomcat. Think a php script or Java class that writes an external file or goes to a database.
  
  Shutdown procedures allow the program to clean up after itself before stopping, wait for a database connection to cease or else cease it, explicitly close or wait for files to close, etc.

• Stop
  2003-10-23 12:35:53  anonymous2 [View]
  
  
  Killing a process isn't enough for many types of servers - it can result in data loss, or worse. Without support for shutdown items, OS X is still not suitable for use as a server OS. This is the most glaring omission in an otherwise fine OS, and is a show-stopper for serious use.