Re: Stats collection on Windows

2006/4/5, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>:
>
> AFAICS, don't-reuse-PIDs-too-quick has exact analogs that Windows has
> to solve by ensuring it doesn't reuse HANDLEs too quick.

There's a disconnect here. handles aren't process identifiers: they're
reference counted "pointers" to the kernel structures for the process. If
you are holding a handle (ie: from CreateProcess or OpenProcess) that handle
cannot and will not be reclaimed until you call CloseHandle (or your process
itself exits). You should never retain a handle after you've called
CloseHandle on it.

Which brings an interesting thought: are process ID's reclaimed while open
handles remain? I'm willing to bet the answer is no. In that case, the stats
collector could retain the handle until it's done with the process ID.