7.14.1.1 The signal function

Synopsis

1

#include <signal.h>
void (*signal(int sig, void (*func)(int)))(int);

Description

2

The signal function chooses one of three ways in which receipt of the signal number sig is to be subsequently handled. If the value of func is SIG_DFL, default handling for that signal will occur. If the value of func is SIG_IGN, the signal will be ignored. Otherwise, func shall point to a function to be called when that signal occurs. An invocation of such a function because of a signal, or (recursively) of any further functions called by that invocation (other than functions in the standard library), is called a signal handler.

3

When a signal occurs and func points to a function, it is implementation-defined whether the equivalent of signal(sig, SIG_DFL); is executed or the implementation prevents some implementation-defined set of signals (at least including sig) from occurring until the current signal handling has completed; in the case of SIGILL, the implementation may alternatively define that no action is taken. Then the equivalent of (*func)(sig); is executed. If and when the function returns, if the value of sig is SIGFPE, SIGILL, SIGSEGV, or any other implementation-defined value corresponding to a computational exception, the behavior is undefined; otherwise the program will resume execution at the point it was interrupted.

4

If the signal occurs as the result of calling the abort or raise function, the signal handler shall not call the raise function.

5

If the signal occurs other than as the result of calling the abort or raise function, the behavior is undefined if the signal handler refers to any object with static storage duration other than by assigning a value to an object declared as volatile sig_atomic_t, or the signal handler calls any function in the standard library other than the abort function, the _Exit function, or the signal function with the first argument equal to the signal number corresponding to the signal that caused the invocation of the handler. Furthermore, if such a call to the signal function results in a SIG_ERR return, the value of errno is indeterminate.[1]

6

At program startup, the equivalent of

signal(sig, SIG_IGN);

may be executed for some signals selected in an implementation-defined manner; the equivalent of

signal(sig, SIG_DFL);

is executed for all other signals defined by the implementation.

7

The implementation shall behave as if no library function calls the signal function.

Returns

8

If the request can be honored, the signal function returns the value of func for the most recent successful call to signal for the specified signal sig. Otherwise, a value of SIG_ERR is returned and a positive value is stored in errno.

Forward References

Footnotes