Looking through the updaters for [Adobe Acrobat][acrobat] 9 for Mac I came across a bunch of scripts written in [Python][python]. My favourte was called `FindAndKill.py`:

#!/usr/bin/python
“””
Search for and kill app.
“””
import os, sys
import commands
import signal

def main():
if len(sys.argv) != 2:
print ‘Missing or too many arguments.’
print ‘One argument and only one argument is required.’
print ‘Pass in the app name to find and kill (i.e. “Safari”).’
return 0

psCmd = ‘/bin/ps -x -c | grep ‘ + sys.argv[1]
st, output = commands.getstatusoutput( psCmd )

if st == 0:
appsToKill = output.split(‘\n’)
for app in appsToKill:
parts = app.split()
killCmd = ‘kill -s 15 ‘ + parts[0]
#print killCmd
os.system( killCmd )

if __name__ == “__main__”:
main()

(You can [download the Acrobat 9.1.3 update][acrobat913] and find this script at `Acrobat 9 Pro Patch.app/Contents/Resources/FindAndKill.py`.)

Was the author not aware of the `killall` command for sending a kill signal to a named process? The [`killall` man page][mankillall] says it appeared in [FreeBSD 2.1, which was released in November 1995][fbsd]. Adobe CS4 was [released about 14 years later][cs4]. How is it Adobe’s product managers approve these things for release?

What is particularly galling about Adobe’s Acrobat 9 updaters is that they seem to re-implement so much of what the Apple installer application does, even down to their use of gzipped cpio archives for the payload.

[acrobat913]: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4538
[acrobat]: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatpro/
[python]: http://www.python.org
[mankillall]: http://www.manpagez.com/man/1/killall/
[fbsd]: http://www.freebsd.org/releases/2.1R/announce.html
[cs4]: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200809/092308AdobeCS4Family.html