Process Control
When multi-process debugging is enabled, Wing will allow creation of multiple processes from the Debug > Processes sub-menu. This menu also provides a way to continue, pause, restart, or terminate all debug processes at once.
Pressing the Alt key while clicking on the Continue, Terminate, or Restart toolbar icons also causes the operation to be applied to all applicable debug processes at once.
By default when a new process connects and reaches a breakpoint or exception, it is made into the current debug process only if there is no previously current and paused debug process, or if it is the first process that has stopped for the process group most recently launched from the IDE (this does not include processes that attach using wingdbstub unless they are in a process group started from the IDE). In other cases, Wing displays a message at the bottom of the IDE window indicating that a debug process has stopped but does not make it the current process.
This behavior can be changed using the Debug > Processes > Switch to Stopped Processes preference. Setting this preference to Always Switch may be confusing if many processes are reaching a stopping point at once. However, this is the only way to automatically switch to a debug process started with wingdbstub when another debug process is already active.
Wing also lets you control the maximum number of debug processes that may be attached to the IDE at once using the Debugger > Processes > Maximum Process Count preference.
Terminating Processes
When a debug process is terminated from Wing, the IDE will by default also terminate all other processes in the process group. This is appropriate behavior in many but not all cases. The Debugger > Processes > Termination Model preference provides several options for managing termination of debug processes in a multi-processing environment:
Leave Other Processes Running kills only the selected process and leaves all other processes running.
Kill Child Processes with Parent also kills all children, grand-children, and other processes spawned by the process that is being terminated. However, any parent, grand-parents, uncles, cousins, etc, of the terminated process are left running.
Kill Entire Process Group kills all processes in the group, including all parents, grand-parents, children, grand-children, uncles, cousins, etc. This is the default termination model.
Prompt for Action When a Process is Killed displays a dialog listing processes associated with the debug process that is being terminated and offers to kill selected processes, all children, or the entire process group.
Note that when a only subset of the processes in a procress group are killed, those remaining processes that expect to interact with one of the terminated processes may raise "broken pipe" or similar errors.
