Follow Techotopia on Twitter

On-line Guides
All Guides
eBook Store
iOS / Android
Linux for Beginners
Office Productivity
Linux Installation
Linux Security
Linux Utilities
Linux Virtualization
Linux Kernel
System/Network Admin
Programming
Scripting Languages
Development Tools
Web Development
GUI Toolkits/Desktop
Databases
Mail Systems
openSolaris
Eclipse Documentation
Techotopia.com
Virtuatopia.com
Answertopia.com

How To Guides
Virtualization
General System Admin
Linux Security
Linux Filesystems
Web Servers
Graphics & Desktop
PC Hardware
Windows
Problem Solutions
Privacy Policy

  




 

 

24.7.6 Checking for Pending Signals

You can find out which signals are pending at any time by calling sigpending. This function is declared in signal.h.

— Function: int sigpending (sigset_t *set)

The sigpending function stores information about pending signals in set. If there is a pending signal that is blocked from delivery, then that signal is a member of the returned set. (You can test whether a particular signal is a member of this set using sigismember; see Signal Sets.)

The return value is 0 if successful, and -1 on failure.

Testing whether a signal is pending is not often useful. Testing when that signal is not blocked is almost certainly bad design.

Here is an example.

     #include <signal.h>
     #include <stddef.h>
     
     sigset_t base_mask, waiting_mask;
     
     sigemptyset (&base_mask);
     sigaddset (&base_mask, SIGINT);
     sigaddset (&base_mask, SIGTSTP);
     
     /* Block user interrupts while doing other processing. */
     sigprocmask (SIG_SETMASK, &base_mask, NULL);
     ...
     
     /* After a while, check to see whether any signals are pending. */
     sigpending (&waiting_mask);
     if (sigismember (&waiting_mask, SIGINT)) {
       /* User has tried to kill the process. */
     }
     else if (sigismember (&waiting_mask, SIGTSTP)) {
       /* User has tried to stop the process. */
     }

Remember that if there is a particular signal pending for your process, additional signals of that same type that arrive in the meantime might be discarded. For example, if a SIGINT signal is pending when another SIGINT signal arrives, your program will probably only see one of them when you unblock this signal.

Portability Note: The sigpending function is new in POSIX.1. Older systems have no equivalent facility.


 
 
  Published under the terms of the GNU General Public License Design by Interspire