=over =item kill LIST Sends a signal to a list of processes. The first element of the list must be the signal to send. Returns the number of processes successfully signaled. $cnt = kill 1, $child1, $child2; kill 9, @goners; Unlike in the shell, in Perl if the I is negative, it kills process groups instead of processes. (On System V, a negative I number will also kill process groups, but that's not portable.) That means you usually want to use positive not negative signals. You may also use a signal name in quotes. See L for details. =back