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SIGNAL(3) BSD Library Functions Manual SIGNAL(3)
NAME
signal -- simplified software signal facilities
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <signal.h>
void (*
signal(int sig, void (*func)(int)))(int);
or in the 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 ter-mination termination
mination 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 receiv-ing receiving
ing 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 <signal.h>:
No Name Default Action Description
1 SIGHUP terminate process terminal line hangup
2 SIGINT terminate process interrupt program
3 SIGQUIT create core image quit program
4 SIGILL create core image illegal instruction
5 SIGTRAP create core image trace trap
6 SIGABRT create core image abort program (formerly SIGIOT)
7 SIGEMT create core image emulate instruction executed
8 SIGFPE create core image floating-point exception
9 SIGKILL terminate process kill program
10 SIGBUS create core image bus error
11 SIGSEGV create core image segmentation violation
12 SIGSYS create core image non-existent system call invoked
13 SIGPIPE terminate process write on a pipe with no reader
14 SIGALRM terminate process real-time timer expired
15 SIGTERM terminate process software termination signal
16 SIGURG discard signal urgent condition present on
socket
17 SIGSTOP stop process stop (cannot be caught or
ignored)
18 SIGTSTP stop process stop signal generated from
keyboard
19 SIGCONT discard signal continue after stop
20 SIGCHLD discard signal child status has changed
21 SIGTTIN stop process background read attempted from
control terminal
22 SIGTTOU stop process background write attempted to
control terminal
23 SIGIO discard signal I/O is possible on a descriptor
(see fcntl(2))
24 SIGXCPU terminate process cpu time limit exceeded (see
setrlimit(2))
25 SIGXFSZ terminate process file size limit exceeded (see
setrlimit(2))
26 SIGVTALRM terminate process virtual time alarm (see
setitimer(2))
27 SIGPROF terminate process profiling timer alarm (see
setitimer(2))
28 SIGWINCH discard signal Window size change
29 SIGINFO discard signal status request from keyboard
30 SIGUSR1 terminate process User defined signal 1
31 SIGUSR2 terminate process User defined signal 2
The sig argument specifies which signal was received. The 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, func should be
SIG_DFL. A SIG_DFL resets the default action. To ignore the signal,
func should be SIG_IGN. This will cause subsequent instances of the sig-nal signal
nal to be ignored and pending instances to be discarded. If SIG_IGN is
not used, further occurrences of the signal are automatically blocked and
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. Unlike previ-ous previous
ous signal facilities, the handler func() remains installed after a sig-nal signal
nal has been delivered.
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 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:
[EINVAL] The sig argument is not a valid signal number.
[EINVAL] An attempt is made to ignore or supply a handler for
SIGKILL or SIGSTOP.
SEE ALSO
kill(1), kill(2), ptrace(2), sigaction(2), sigaltstack(2),
sigprocmask(2), sigsuspend(2), wait(2), fpsetmask(3), setjmp(3),
siginterrupt(3), tty(4)
HISTORY
This signal() facility appeared in 4.0BSD. The option to avoid the cre-ation creation
ation of child zombies through ignoring SIGCHLD appeared in FreeBSD 5.0.
BSD June 7, 2004 BSD
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