Why doesn't my parent process wait for its child to finish executing?

Question

I have the most basic script:

$pid = pcntl_fork();
if ($pid == -1) {
     die('could not fork');
} else if ($pid) {
     // we are the parent
     echo "parent done";
     pcntl_wait($status); //Protect against Zombie children
     echo "all done";
} else {
     // we are the child
     echo "Child finished";
}

When I run this, the output is always "Child finished". I'm running this on a lighttpd server.

Answer 1

Could be that your getting a signal from the child but it's not the exit status try some thing like:

do {
    pcntl_wait($status);
} while (!pcntl_wifexited($status));

To make sure the status is the exit one (SIGCHILD).