kill really does not KILL

kill is not really meant only to kill a process. But mainintention is to send a signalto process. And the processhandles these signals to dovarious tasks.

kill -INT 1234

where 1234 is the Process ID is really, this set an interrupt signal, Ctrl-C is an example of interupt signal givento shell.

kill -HUP 1234

some UNIX daemons handle this, to do refreshing business.

kill -KILL 1234

This is the sure kill,which cannot be handled by any process. Also know as,

kill -9 1234

Just, check the in the file /usr/include/sys/signal.h for all signals on the system or you can use:

kill -l

to get the complete list of signals.

Note: More about this can be found onkill and signal man pages.