A recursive process kill script

From: Sunil Alankar (snlkmr_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 05/28/04 

Date: 28 May 2004 14:18:18 -0700

Here is a utility I wrote for killing the process tree of a parent
process recursively. Useful in automation.

#!/bin/bash

##
# recursive kill. kills the process tree down from the specified pid
#

# foreach child of pid, recursive call dokill
dokill() {
    local pid=$1
    local itsparent=""
    local aprocess=""
    local x=""
    # next line is a single line
    for x in `/bin/ps -f | sed -e '/UID/d;s/[a-zA-Z0-9_-]\{1,\}
\{1,\}\([0-9]\{1,\}\) \{1,\}\([0-9]\{1,\}\) .*/\1 \2/g'`
    do
        if [ "$aprocess" = "" ]; then
            aprocess=$x
            itsparent=""
            continue
        else
            itsparent=$x
            if [ "$itsparent" = "$pid" ]; then
                dokill $aprocess
            fi
            aprocess=""
        fi
    done
    echo "killing $1"
    kill -9 $1 > /dev/null 2>&1
}

case $# in
1) PID=$1
        ;;
*) echo "usage: rekill <top pid to kill>";
        exit 1;
        ;;
esac

dokill $PID