KILL(1)

📦 version 1.053, in alpine 3.24

💅 KILL(1) — the group-chat edit 💅

okay so bestie, this is the kill page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation — the Perl Power Tools one, iykyk. It's literally all about sending signals to a process, and it's lowkey a classic. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

kill — send signals to a process. periodt. 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

kill [ -s signalname "PID..." ] [ -signalname "PID..." ] [ -signalnumber
       "PID..." ] [ "PID..." ] [ -l ]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so kill sends a signal to all PIDS specified on the command line. bestie, this is typically done to cause a process to terminate and/or to reload configuration files, etc. signal handlers are specified per program, so the effects of a received signal may vary — no cap. 🦋

🔥 OPTIONS AND ARGUMENTS 🔥

  • -s — takes one argument, a signal name (peep -l for the list), and sends that signal to the PIDs you named. 🎯
  • -signalname — the short little form of -s signalname. same thing, less typing. ✨
  • -signalnumber — says "bestie, use this signal number" and sends it to the PID listing you gave. 🔢
  • -l — shows you a listing of every available signal on the current system. menu behavior. 👑

💜 NOTES 💜

  • no signal on the command line? SIGTERM gets sent to the specified PIDs. default queen. 🫶
  • kill returns 0 on success or >0 if an error occurred. exit status: tracked. ✅
  • kill is built-in to csh(1); see csh(1) for details. yes, the csh girlies have their own. 💅
  • only the super-user may send signals to other users' processes. 🚨
bestie, that's a real permission wall — the super-user note is not a suggestion. 💀
  • this version of kill does not support -l [signal] since there didn't seem to be any use to the parameter (it didn't work on any platform I tried either.) the author said what they said. 😭
  • signal names may have the SIG prefix. i.e.: kill -HUP and kill -SIGHUP are equivalent. same energy, fr fr. 🌈
  • the signal list kill -l displays in an "extended" form which lists both the signal name and the signal number for easy reference. name AND number? obsessed. 🎀

🦋 HISTORY 🦋

Perl version rewritten for the Perl Power Tools project from the description of the kill program in OpenBSD. slay, open-source lineage. 🌟

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Theo Van Dinter (felicity@kluge.net) — the icon behind this page. 💖

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

mwah 💋 — this cutie is from perl v5.42.2, dated 2026-02-15, and it's filed as KILL(1). now go send a signal, bestie, responsibly 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from