How do I disable END blocks in child processes?

Question

I frequently use fork in programs that also have END { ... } blocks:

...
END { &some_cleanup_code }
...
my $pid = fork();
if (defined($pid) && $pid==0) {
    &run_child_code;
    exit 0;
}

The child process executes the END {} block as it is exiting, but usually I don't want that to happen. Is there a way to prevent a child process from calling the END block at exit? Barring that, is there a way for a program to "know" that it is a child process, so I could say something like

END { unless (i_am_a_child_process()) { &some_cleanup_code } }

?

Answer 1

I don't think there's any way to prevent END blocks from running in a forked process, but this should let you detect it:

my $original_pid; BEGIN { $original_pid = $$ }

... # Program goes here

END { do_cleanup() if $$ == $original_pid }