In Oyster v3.2 and earlier, when a user initiates a kill operation on an OYSTER run, the program simply terminates and all current state information is lost from any output buffers. Note: in v3.2 and earlier, kill operations are initiated via ctrl+c or by closing the run window. The purpose of the Kill Thread, introduced in OYSTER v3.3, is to allow OYSTER the ability to retain the current state of the run when a Kill is initiated. This will also provide the user with a direct OYSTER implemented method to Kill the processing of a run. This allows the user to gracefully exit the process and review the results of the run up till the kill point.

The Kill process depends on two things. The first is a new thread that is initiated during the start of the OYSTER run that repeatedly "polls" the directory in which the initiating RunScript resides and checks for the existence of a "kill.txt" file. The second is the kill.txt file itself. The user must create this file when they decide to kill the process.

No additional options are required in any of the XML scripts to initiate the Kill Thread. The kill.txt file that invokes the Kill process is an empty text file that is placed in the directory in which the initiating RunScript resides. The file name must be "kill.txt" as this is what the Kill Thread is checking for.

The Kill Thread polls the directory every 20 seconds so there may be a slight delay from the time the kill.txt file is placed in the directory and the current run is stopped.

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