tkill.py

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE, call
from sys import argv, exit
from time import sleep
from os import getpid

def get_process_list(app):
    ps_aux = Popen(["ps", "aux"], stdout=PIPE)
    grep = Popen(["grep", app], stdin=ps_aux.stdout, stdout=PIPE)
    awk = Popen(["awk", "{print $2}"], stdin=grep.stdout, stdout=PIPE)
    ps_aux.stdout.close()
    grep.stdout.close()
    return awk.communicate()[0].strip("\n").split("\n")

def kill_process_list(process_list):
    devnull = open("/dev/null", "w")
    for x in process_list:
        if str(x) != str(getpid()):
            kill = Popen(["kill", x], stdout=devnull, stderr=devnull)


def timed_kill():
    try:
        app, minutes = argv[1:3]
        sleep(int(float(minutes) * 60))
        kill_process_list(get_process_list(app))
    except Exception, ex:
        print ex.message
        print " Invalid argument\n Usage : tkill <app name> <time in minutes>"


if __name__ == "__main__":
    timed_kill()