How do web servers handle dropped connections?

[Walter Hop <walter () SKYDANCER ORG>]

Hi,

looking at the stars last night I was wondering: if I request a scripted
page /blah.pl from a webserver, the server starts the perl interpreter and
runs the script. What happens when the browser breaks the connection
with the web server before the script has finished? Is the script allowed
to execute fully and is the output being discarded afterwards, or is the
process killed immediately? In other words, can server side scripts be
aborted prematurely in this way - and for example corrupt open files or
leave inconsistencies in a database?

This condition is probably considered by web server authors long ago, but
I can't find any info on the subject (and am not great in C)..

cheers,
walter

--                                                            /
Society often forgives the criminal;                         \ 1 \
it never forgives the dreamer. [Oscar Wilde, 1891]              /
____________________________________________________  br4!n.d3th==0bz0l!t