kill a shell created by vim when ctrl-C doesn't work

Question

I'm writing some threaded python code in vim. When I run my tests, with

:! py.test test_me.py

Sometimes they hang and cannot be killed with ctrl-C. So I have to background vim (actually the shell the tests are running in) and pkill py.test . Is there a better way to kill the hanging test suite?

I tried mapping :map ,k:! pkill py.test :map ,k:! pkill py.test but this doesn't work since while the tests are running my input is going to the shell running the test, not vim.

EDIT: I'm looking for a way to kill the test process that is quicker than ctrl-Z , pkill py.test , fg <cr> to return to editing. Ideally just a hotkey.

Answer 1

When you do :! in Vim, you effectively put Vim into background and the running process, in this case py.test , gets the focus. That means you can't tell Vim to kill the process for you since Vim is not getting keystrokes from you.

Ctrl - Z puts Vim into background while running py.test because Vim is the parent process of py.test . Thus the shell goes through the chain then puts all children as well as the parent into background.

I would suggest that you open another terminal window and do all the housekeeping chores there.