void * Ns
Fo signal
Fa int sig
Fa void *funcint
Fc Ns
int ;
or in
Fx Ap s
equivalent but easier to read typedef'd version:
typedef void *sig_t int ;
sig_t
signal (int sig sig_t func);
DESCRIPTION
This
signal ();
facility
is a simplified interface to the more general
sigaction(2)
facility.
Signals allow the manipulation of a process from outside its
domain as well as allowing the process to manipulate itself or
copies of itself (children).
There are two general types of signals:
those that cause termination of a process and those that do not.
Signals which cause termination of a program might result from
an irrecoverable error or might be the result of a user at a terminal
typing the `interrupt' character.
Signals are used when a process is stopped because it wishes to access
its control terminal while in the background (see
tty(4)).
Signals are optionally generated
when a process resumes after being stopped,
when the status of child processes changes,
or when input is ready at the control terminal.
Most signals result in the termination of the process receiving them
if no action
is taken; some signals instead cause the process receiving them
to be stopped, or are simply discarded if the process has not
requested otherwise.
Except for the
SIGKILL
and
SIGSTOP
signals, the
signal ();
function allows for a signal to be caught, to be ignored, or to generate
an interrupt.
These signals are defined in the file
In signal.h :
NameDefault ActionDescription
1 Ta SIGHUP Ta terminate process Ta terminal line hangup
2 Ta SIGINT Ta terminate process Ta interrupt program
3 Ta SIGQUIT Ta create core image Ta quit program
4 Ta SIGILL Ta create core image Ta illegal instruction
5 Ta SIGTRAP Ta create core image Ta trace trap
6 Ta SIGABRT Ta create core image Ta abort program
(formerly SIGIOT
7 Ta SIGEMT Ta create core image Ta emulate instruction executed
8 Ta SIGFPE Ta create core image Ta floating-point exception
9 Ta SIGKILL Ta terminate process Ta kill program
10 Ta SIGBUS Ta create core image Ta bus error
11 Ta SIGSEGV Ta create core image Ta segmentation violation
12 Ta SIGSYS Ta create core image Ta non-existent system call invoked
13 Ta SIGPIPE Ta terminate process Ta write on a pipe with no reader
14 Ta SIGALRM Ta terminate process Ta real-time timer expired
15 Ta SIGTERM Ta terminate process Ta software termination signal
16 Ta SIGURG Ta discard signal Ta urgent condition present on socket
17 Ta SIGSTOP Ta stop process Ta stop (cannot be caught or ignored)
18 Ta SIGTSTP Ta stop process Ta stop signal generated from keyboard
19 Ta SIGCONT Ta discard signal Ta continue after stop
20 Ta SIGCHLD Ta discard signal Ta child status has changed
21 Ta SIGTTIN Ta stop process Ta background read attempted from
control terminal
22 Ta SIGTTOU Ta stop process Ta background write attempted to
28 Ta SIGWINCH Ta discard signal Ta Window size change
29 Ta SIGINFO Ta discard signal Ta status request from keyboard
30 Ta SIGUSR1 Ta terminate process Ta User defined signal 1
31 Ta SIGUSR2 Ta terminate process Ta User defined signal 2
32 Ta SIGTHR Ta terminate process Ta thread interrupt
The
Fa sig
argument specifies which signal was received.
The
Fa func
procedure allows a user to choose the action upon receipt of a signal.
To set the default action of the signal to occur as listed above,
Fa func
should be
SIG_DFL
A
SIG_DFL
resets the default action.
To ignore the signal
Fa func
should be
SIG_IGN
This will cause subsequent instances of the signal to be ignored
and pending instances to be discarded.
If
SIG_IGN
is not used,
further occurrences of the signal are
automatically blocked and
Fa func
is called.
The handled signal is unblocked when the
function returns and
the process continues from where it left off when the signal occurred.
Bf -symbolic
Unlike previous signal facilities, the handler
func() remains installed after a signal has been delivered.
Ef
For some system calls, if a signal is caught while the call is
executing and the call is prematurely terminated,
the call is automatically restarted.
(The handler is installed using the
SA_RESTART
flag with
sigaction(2).)
The affected system calls include
read(2),
write(2),
sendto(2),
recvfrom(2),
sendmsg(2)
and
recvmsg(2)
on a communications channel or a low speed device
and during a
ioctl(2)
or
wait(2).
However, calls that have already committed are not restarted,
but instead return a partial success (for example, a short read count).
These semantics could be changed with
siginterrupt(3).
When a process which has installed signal handlers forks,
the child process inherits the signals.
All caught signals may be reset to their default action by a call
to the
execve(2)
function;
ignored signals remain ignored.
If a process explicitly specifies
SIG_IGN
as the action for the signal
SIGCHLD
the system will not create zombie processes when children
of the calling process exit.
As a consequence, the system will discard the exit status
from the child processes.
If the calling process subsequently issues a call to
wait(2)
or equivalent, it will block until all of the calling process's
children terminate, and then return a value of -1 with
errno
set to
Er ECHILD .
See
sigaction(2)
for a list of functions
that are considered safe for use in signal handlers.
RETURN VALUES
The previous action is returned on a successful call.
Otherwise, SIG_ERR is returned and the global variable
errno
is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
The
signal ();
function
will fail and no action will take place if one of the
following occur:
Bq Er EINVAL
The
Fa sig
argument
is not a valid signal number.
Bq Er EINVAL
An attempt is made to ignore or supply a handler for
SIGKILL
or
SIGSTOP