KILL(1)

NAME
kill - terminate a process with extreme prejudice

SYNOPSIS
kill [ -sig ] processid ...
kill -l

DESCRIPTION
Kill sends the TERM (terminate, 15) signal to the specified processes. If a signal name or number preceded by `-' is given as first argument, that signal is sent instead of terminate (see sigvec(2)). The signal names are listed by `kill -l', and are as given in /usr/include/signal.h, stripped of the common SIG prefix.

The terminate signal will kill processes that do not catch the signal; `kill -9 ...' is a sure kill, as the KILL (9) signal cannot be caught. By convention, if process number 0 is specified, all members in the process group (i.e. processes resulting from the current login) are signaled (but beware: this works only if you use sh(1); not if you use csh(1).) Negative process numbers also have special meanings; see kill(2) for details.

The killed processes must belong to the current user unless he is the super-user.

The process number of an asynchronous process started with `&' is reported by the shell. Process numbers can also be found by using ps(1). Kill is a built-in to csh(1); it allows job specifiers of the form ``%...'' as arguments so process id's are not as often used as kill arguments. See csh(1) for details.

SEE ALSO
csh(1), ps(1), kill(2), sigvec(2)

BUGS
A replacement for ``kill 0'' for csh(1) users should be provided.