Bug#926896: sysvinit-utils: pidof is unreliable

[Jesse Smith]

> Jesse,
>    any ideas how it could be possible for process to be discovered by
>    ps(1), but not pidof(1)?
>

I can think of a few possibilities, though they seem unlikely. One is
that the process could be crashing and restarting, making it a zombie
for brief periods of time. Testing pidof with the "-z" flag would fill
in the "holes" in the test output if that theory is correct.

Alternatively, if the executable is on a remote network share, like NFS,
that might explain the gaps.

While it doesn't explain the gaps in output, I am curious if the gaps
also appear if the pidof test is run without the "-s" flag. So instead
of "pidof -s apcupsd" what happens if you run "pidof -z apcupsd"?

- Jesse