title: Can I delete [php] <defunct> processes
body: <p>I made a PHP script which reads some data and starts a new process with pctnl_fork to do some work with the data. When the child processes are finished they stay in as process. ps aux shows me a list of processes like</p>
  
  <pre><code>demo       32229  0.0  0.0      0     0 pts/0    Z    12:23   0:00 [php] &lt;defunct&gt;
  demo       32251  0.0  0.0      0     0 pts/0    Z    11:50   0:00 [php] &lt;defunct&gt;
  demo       32284  0.0  0.0      0     0 pts/0    Z    11:50   0:00 [php] &lt;defunct&gt;
  demo       32298  0.0  0.0      0     0 pts/0    Z    12:56   0:00 [php] &lt;defunct&gt;
  demo       32303  0.0  0.0      0     0 pts/0    Z    11:50   0:00 [php] &lt;defunct&gt;
  demo       32316  0.0  0.0      0     0 pts/0    Z    12:23   0:00 [php] &lt;defunct&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Can I safely kill this processes as the parent process is still creating new processes to do some work? I know I should probably start the command piping to stderr (according to this topic <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3748432/insane-crond-behavior-keeps-making-defunct-bash-processes)...but">Insane crond behavior. keeps making defunct bash processes</a> now it is too late.
  The parent process is running in the background.</p>