init:stop () semantics

[Leonid Timochouk]

Hello Erlang users,

In the documentation for the "init:stop()" function, it is said that "all
applications are taken down smoothly". However, close analysis of the
source code for this function (in OTP-R8B-2) suggests that it simply sends
{'EXIT', kill} to all running processes except "heart" and "init"
itself. Is it a smooth shutdown? Yet, it seems that the "stop()" call-back
DOES get invoked for the running application -- how is it possible if all
processes (including the application controller?) are brutally killed?

Yours sincerely,
Leonid Timochouk

Computing Laboratory
University of Kent at Canterbury