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NAME
sigaction - examine and change a signal action
SYNOPSIS
#include <signal.h>
int sigaction(int sig, const struct sigaction *restrict act,
struct sigaction *restrict oact);
DESCRIPTION
The sigaction() function allows the calling process to examine and/or specify the action to be associated
with a specific signal. The argument sig specifies the signal; acceptable values are defined in
<signal.h>.
The structure sigaction, used to describe an action to be taken, is defined in the <signal.h> header to
include at least the following members:
Member Type Member Name Description
void(*) (int) sa_handler Pointer to a signal-catching
function or one of the macros
SIG_IGN or SIG_DFL.
sigset_t sa_mask Additional set of signals to
be blocked during execution of
signal-catching function.
int sa_flags Special flags to affect
behavior of signal.
void(*) (int,
siginfo_t *, sa_sigaction Pointer to a signal-catching
void *) function.
The storage occupied by sa_handler and sa_sigaction may overlap, and a conforming application shall not
use both simultaneously.
If the argument act is not a null pointer, it points to a structure specifying the action to be
associated with the specified signal. If the argument oact is not a null pointer, the action previously
associated with the signal is stored in the location pointed to by the argument oact. If the argument act
is a null pointer, signal handling is unchanged; thus, the call can be used to enquire about the current
handling of a given signal. The SIGKILL and SIGSTOP signals shall not be added to the signal mask using
this mechanism; this restriction shall be enforced by the system without causing an error to be
indicated.
If the SA_SIGINFO flag (see below) is cleared in the sa_flags field of the sigaction structure, the
sa_handler field identifies the action to be associated with the specified signal. If the SA_SIGINFO
flag is set in the sa_flags field, and the implementation supports the Realtime Signals Extension option
or the XSI Extension option, the sa_sigaction field specifies a signal-catching function. If the
SA_SIGINFO bit is cleared and the sa_handler field specifies a signal-catching function, or if the
SA_SIGINFO bit is set, the sa_mask field identifies a set of signals that shall be added to the signal
mask of the thread before the signal-catching function is invoked. If the sa_handler field specifies a
signal-catching function, the sa_mask field identifies a set of signals that shall be added to the
process' signal mask before the signal-catching function is invoked.
The sa_flags field can be used to modify the behavior of the specified signal.
The following flags, defined in the <signal.h> header, can be set in sa_flags:
SA_NOCLDSTOP
Do not generate SIGCHLD when children stop or stopped children continue.
If sig is SIGCHLD and the SA_NOCLDSTOP flag is not set in sa_flags, and the implementation supports the
SIGCHLD signal, then a SIGCHLD signal shall be generated for the calling process whenever any of its
child processes stop and a SIGCHLD signal may be generated for the calling process whenever any of its
stopped child processes are continued. If sig is SIGCHLD and the SA_NOCLDSTOP flag is set in sa_flags,
then the implementation shall not generate a SIGCHLD signal in this way.
SA_ONSTACK
If set and an alternate signal stack has been declared with sigaltstack(), the signal shall be
delivered to the calling process on that stack. Otherwise, the signal shall be delivered on the
current stack.
SA_RESETHAND
If set, the disposition of the signal shall be reset to SIG_DFL and the SA_SIGINFO flag shall be
cleared on entry to the signal handler.
Note:
SIGILL and SIGTRAP cannot be automatically reset when delivered; the system silently enforces this
restriction.
Otherwise, the disposition of the signal shall not be modified on entry to the signal handler.
In addition, if this flag is set, sigaction() behaves as if the SA_NODEFER flag were also set.
SA_RESTART
This flag affects the behavior of interruptible functions; that is, those specified to fail with
errno set to [EINTR]. If set, and a function specified as interruptible is interrupted by this
signal, the function shall restart and shall not fail with [EINTR] unless otherwise specified. If
the flag is not set, interruptible functions interrupted by this signal shall fail with errno set
to [EINTR].
SA_SIGINFO
If cleared and the signal is caught, the signal-catching function shall be entered as:
void func(int signo);
where signo is the only argument to the signal-catching function. In this case, the application shall
use the sa_handler member to describe the signal-catching function and the application shall not modify
the sa_sigaction member.
If SA_SIGINFO is set and the signal is caught, the signal-catching function shall be entered as:
void func(int signo, siginfo_t *info, void *context);
where two additional arguments are passed to the signal-catching function. The second argument shall
point to an object of type siginfo_t explaining the reason why the signal was generated; the third
argument can be cast to a pointer to an object of type ucontext_t to refer to the receiving process'
context that was interrupted when the signal was delivered. In this case, the application shall use the
sa_sigaction member to describe the signal-catching function and the application shall not modify the
sa_handler member.
The si_signo member contains the system-generated signal number.
The si_errno member may contain implementation-defined additional error information; if non-zero, it
contains an error number identifying the condition that caused the signal to be generated.
The si_code member contains a code identifying the cause of the signal.
If the value of si_code is less than or equal to 0, then the signal was generated by a process and si_pid
and si_uid, respectively, indicate the process ID and the real user ID of the sender. The <signal.h>
header description contains information about the signal-specific contents of the elements of the
siginfo_t type.
SA_NOCLDWAIT
If set, and sig equals SIGCHLD, child processes of the calling processes shall not be transformed
into zombie processes when they terminate. If the calling process subsequently waits for its
children, and the process has no unwaited-for children that were transformed into zombie
processes, it shall block until all of its children terminate, and wait(), waitid(), and waitpid()
shall fail and set errno to [ECHILD]. Otherwise, terminating child processes shall be transformed
into zombie processes, unless SIGCHLD is set to SIG_IGN.
SA_NODEFER
If set and sig is caught, sig shall not be added to the process' signal mask on entry to the
signal handler unless it is included in sa_mask. Otherwise, sig shall always be added to the
process' signal mask on entry to the signal handler.
When a signal is caught by a signal-catching function installed by sigaction(), a new signal mask is
calculated and installed for the duration of the signal-catching function (or until a call to either
sigprocmask() or sigsuspend() is made). This mask is formed by taking the union of the current signal
mask and the value of the sa_mask for the signal being delivered unless SA_NODEFER or SA_RESETHAND is
set, and then including the signal being delivered. If and when the user's signal handler returns
normally, the original signal mask is restored.
Once an action is installed for a specific signal, it shall remain installed until another action is
explicitly requested (by another call to sigaction()), until the SA_RESETHAND flag causes resetting of
the handler, or until one of the exec functions is called.
If the previous action for sig had been established by signal(), the values of the fields returned in the
structure pointed to by oact are unspecified, and in particular oact-> sa_handler is not necessarily the
same value passed to signal(). However, if a pointer to the same structure or a copy thereof is passed
to a subsequent call to sigaction() via the act argument, handling of the signal shall be as if the
original call to signal() were repeated.
If sigaction() fails, no new signal handler is installed.
It is unspecified whether an attempt to set the action for a signal that cannot be caught or ignored to
SIG_DFL is ignored or causes an error to be returned with errno set to [EINVAL].
If SA_SIGINFO is not set in sa_flags, then the disposition of subsequent occurrences of sig when it is
already pending is implementation-defined; the signal-catching function shall be invoked with a single
argument. If the implementation supports the Realtime Signals Extension option, and if SA_SIGINFO is
set in sa_flags, then subsequent occurrences of sig generated by sigqueue() or as a result of any signal-
generating function that supports the specification of an application-defined value (when sig is already
pending) shall be queued in FIFO order until delivered or accepted; the signal-catching function shall be
invoked with three arguments. The application specified value is passed to the signal-catching function
as the si_value member of the siginfo_t structure.
The result of the use of sigaction() and a sigwait() function concurrently within a process on the same
signal is unspecified.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion, sigaction() shall return 0; otherwise, -1 shall be returned, errno shall be
set to indicate the error, and no new signal-catching function shall be installed.
ERRORS
The sigaction() function shall fail if:
EINVAL The sig argument is not a valid signal number or an attempt is made to catch a signal that cannot
be caught or ignore a signal that cannot be ignored.
ENOTSUP
The SA_SIGINFO bit flag is set in the sa_flags field of the sigaction structure, and the
implementation does not support either the Realtime Signals Extension option, or the XSI Extension
option.
The sigaction() function may fail if:
EINVAL An attempt was made to set the action to SIG_DFL for a signal that cannot be caught or ignored (or
both).
The following sections are informative.
EXAMPLES
None.
APPLICATION USAGE
The sigaction() function supersedes the signal() function, and should be used in preference. In
particular, sigaction() and signal() should not be used in the same process to control the same signal.
The behavior of reentrant functions, as defined in the DESCRIPTION, is as specified by this volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, regardless of invocation from a signal-catching function. This is the only intended
meaning of the statement that reentrant functions may be used in signal-catching functions without
restrictions. Applications must still consider all effects of such functions on such things as data
structures, files, and process state. In particular, application writers need to consider the
restrictions on interactions when interrupting sleep() and interactions among multiple handles for a file
description. The fact that any specific function is listed as reentrant does not necessarily mean that
invocation of that function from a signal-catching function is recommended.
In order to prevent errors arising from interrupting non-reentrant function calls, applications should
protect calls to these functions either by blocking the appropriate signals or through the use of some
programmatic semaphore (see semget() , sem_init() , sem_open() , and so on). Note in particular that even
the "safe" functions may modify errno; the signal-catching function, if not executing as an independent
thread, may want to save and restore its value. Naturally, the same principles apply to the reentrancy of
application routines and asynchronous data access. Note that longjmp() and siglongjmp() are not in the
list of reentrant functions. This is because the code executing after longjmp() and siglongjmp() can
call any unsafe functions with the same danger as calling those unsafe functions directly from the signal
handler. Applications that use longjmp() and siglongjmp() from within signal handlers require rigorous
protection in order to be portable. Many of the other functions that are excluded from the list are
traditionally implemented using either malloc() or free() functions or the standard I/O library, both of
which traditionally use data structures in a non-reentrant manner. Since any combination of different
functions using a common data structure can cause reentrancy problems, this volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 does not define the behavior when any unsafe function is called in a signal handler
that interrupts an unsafe function.
If the signal occurs other than as the result of calling abort(), kill(), or raise(), the behavior is
undefined if the signal handler calls any function in the standard library other than one of the
functions listed in the table above or refers to any object with static storage duration other than by
assigning a value to a static storage duration variable of type volatile sig_atomic_t. Furthermore, if
such a call fails, the value of errno is unspecified.
Usually, the signal is executed on the stack that was in effect before the signal was delivered. An
alternate stack may be specified to receive a subset of the signals being caught.
When the signal handler returns, the receiving process resumes execution at the point it was interrupted
unless the signal handler makes other arrangements. If longjmp() or _longjmp() is used to leave the
signal handler, then the signal mask must be explicitly restored by the process.
This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 defines the third argument of a signal handling function when
SA_SIGINFO is set as a void * instead of a ucontext_t *, but without requiring type checking. New
applications should explicitly cast the third argument of the signal handling function to ucontext_t *.
The BSD optional four argument signal handling function is not supported by this volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. The BSD declaration would be:
void handler(int sig, int code, struct sigcontext *scp,
char *addr);
where sig is the signal number, code is additional information on certain signals, scp is a pointer to
the sigcontext structure, and addr is additional address information. Much the same information is
available in the objects pointed to by the second argument of the signal handler specified when
SA_SIGINFO is set.
RATIONALE
Although this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 requires that signals that cannot be ignored shall not be
added to the signal mask when a signal-catching function is entered, there is no explicit requirement
that subsequent calls to sigaction() reflect this in the information returned in the oact argument. In
other words, if SIGKILL is included in the sa_mask field of act, it is unspecified whether or not a
subsequent call to sigaction() returns with SIGKILL included in the sa_mask field of oact.
The SA_NOCLDSTOP flag, when supplied in the act-> sa_flags parameter, allows overloading SIGCHLD with the
System V semantics that each SIGCLD signal indicates a single terminated child. Most conforming
applications that catch SIGCHLD are expected to install signal-catching functions that repeatedly call
the waitpid() function with the WNOHANG flag set, acting on each child for which status is returned,
until waitpid() returns zero. If stopped children are not of interest, the use of the SA_NOCLDSTOP flag
can prevent the overhead from invoking the signal-catching routine when they stop.
Some historical implementations also define other mechanisms for stopping processes, such as the ptrace()
function. These implementations usually do not generate a SIGCHLD signal when processes stop due to this
mechanism; however, that is beyond the scope of this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001.
This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 requires that calls to sigaction() that supply a NULL act argument
succeed, even in the case of signals that cannot be caught or ignored (that is, SIGKILL or SIGSTOP). The
System V signal() and BSD sigvec() functions return [EINVAL] in these cases and, in this respect, their
behavior varies from sigaction().
This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 requires that sigaction() properly save and restore a signal action
set up by the ISO C standard signal() function. However, there is no guarantee that the reverse is true,
nor could there be given the greater amount of information conveyed by the sigaction structure. Because
of this, applications should avoid using both functions for the same signal in the same process. Since
this cannot always be avoided in case of general-purpose library routines, they should always be
implemented with sigaction().
It was intended that the signal() function should be implementable as a library routine using
sigaction().
The POSIX Realtime Extension extends the sigaction() function as specified by the POSIX.1-1990 standard
to allow the application to request on a per-signal basis via an additional signal action flag that the
extra parameters, including the application-defined signal value, if any, be passed to the signal-
catching function.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
Signal Concepts , bsd_signal() , kill() , _longjmp() , longjmp() , raise() , semget() , sem_init() ,
sem_open() , sigaddset() , sigaltstack() , sigdelset() , sigemptyset() , sigfillset() , sigismember() ,
signal() , sigprocmask() , sigsuspend() , wait() , waitid() , waitpid() , the Base Definitions volume of
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <signal.h>, <ucontext.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The
original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2003 SIGACTION(P)