sh kill illegal number : Kill parallel process

Question

I am trying to open multiple parallel processes on a C++ program using. The four of them have to run in parallel. But when my C++ program closes, I want to kill each process. This is my attempt:

system("python okcsend.py & PID1=$! python okccnysend.py & PID2=$! python okc.py & PID3=$! python okccny.py & PID4=$!");

And when trying kill them, this is what I do:

system("kill PID1; kill PID2; kill PID3; kill PID4");

However, this is what I get:

sh: 1: kill: Illegal number: PID1
sh: 1: kill: Illegal number: PID2
sh: 1: kill: Illegal number: PID3
sh: 1: kill: Illegal number: PID4

What's the correct way of doing this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You need to get back the PID from each process separately.

Pseudo code:

pid1 = system("python okcsend.py & echo $!)
pid2 = system("python okcsend.py & echo $!)
pid3 = system("python okcsend.py & echo $!)
pid4 = system("python okcsend.py & echo $!)

then you could do something like:

system("kill " + pid1 + "; kill " + pid2 + "; kill " + pid3 + "; kill " + pid4 + ";");