Patent ID: 9612864
Date: 2017-04-04
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A method for singleton process control in a computer environment, comprising: storing a process identification (PID) of a last spawned process for a background process in a first temporary file, the PID stored by a parent process, and subsequently accessed by the background process that is initialized; determining if the parent process is alive for a predetermined number of tries, wherein a PID of the background process is written from the first temporary file into a first PID variable when the parent process ends; determining whether a second, global temporary file is empty, wherein: writing the existing PID to a second PID variable; and ensuring only one instance of the associated program is started by using the PID of the background process and not using program names, wherein a wrapper script returns a prompt to a user as calls to start a program as the parent process dies.