February 11, 2005
James Dunne wrote:
> Stewart,
> 
> A signal, in Linux (or any POSIX compliant OS) at least, is a special message
> that the OS sends to a process on a special event.  You can think of these
> signals as sort-of like the Windows message pump idea, if you know how that
> works.  Basically, the Linux program sets up signal handling functions for the
> different signals it wants to catch.
> 
> For example, the most common signals to trap are SIGTERM and SIGINT.  SIGTERM is
> a signal sent when the OS needs to TERMinate the process (probably on system
> shutdown, or via the kill shell command).  The other signal, SIGINT, is the
> signal sent when the user sends a CTRL-C to the process from the shell.  It is
> useful to trap this signal in order to shut down programs properly.
<snip top of upside-down reply>

I see.  But doesn't that carry the same risk of being interrupted halfway through reading a 64-bit integer that Matthew mentioned?

Stewart.

-- 
My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox.  Please keep replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit.
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