detecting a dead db not seeming to work

Hiya
    I have now managed to get my code to function correctly for a none
present db, and one that is shutdown whilst it is being used.  In both
cases my code functions and happily recovers on the db's return.

However one of the tests I performed was to kill -9 the postmaster
process to see how it would handle that (assuming the same behaviour).
However nothing happens!  no segfault, no db connection failure etc.
Also what is weird is that even once I have removed the pid file from
/var/run  I cannot restart postgres with the /etc/init.d/postgres
script!  It claims postgres is running...

If I kill my daemon which is trying to talk to it, postgres starts
without problem agian!

it's as though my daemon trying to talk to it is keeping the connection
open and preventing the db from being started!

I am running postgres 7.3.4 under redhat 9.

Any idea whats going on? or suggestions?

Thanks

--
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Graeme Hinchliffe (BSc)
Core Internet Systems Designer
Zen Internet (http://www.zen.co.uk/)

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