CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++
user1444426
user1444426

Reputation: 635

What causes a SIGABRT fault?

Could you please tell me what could possibly cause a SIGABRT fault in C++?

Upvotes: 53

Views: 91861

Answers (3)

Rafael Baptista
Rafael Baptista

Reputation: 11499

In practice this is usually triggered by the assert macro:

char* foo = NULL;
assert( foo != NULL );

would result in SIGABRT

Upvotes: 6

ecatmur
ecatmur

Reputation: 157484

Per Wikipedia,

SIGABRT is sent by the process to itself when it calls the abort libc function, defined in stdlib.h. The SIGABRT signal can be caught, but it cannot be blocked; if the signal handler returns then all open streams are closed and flushed and the program terminates (dumping core if appropriate). This means that the abort call never returns. Because of this characteristic, it is often used to signal fatal conditions in support libraries, situations where the current operation cannot be completed but the main program can perform cleanup before exiting. It is used when an assertion fails.

That means that if your code is not calling abort directly nor sending itself the SIGABRT signal via raise, and you don't have any failing assertions, the cause must be that a support library (which could be libc) has encountered an internal error. If you provide the details of your program we might be able to suggest possible causes. Even better, if you examine a core or run your program in a debugger you should be able to collect a stack trace, which will show which library caused your program to abort.

(It is also possible that another program on your system is sending your program SIGABRT, but this is in most cases vanishingly unlikely.)

Upvotes: 36

Andrew
Andrew

Reputation: 1027

This usually happens when libraries encounter internal error, so they call abort(), because they cant continue. This might happen when you overwrite one of it's data structures (the one which belongs to the function from libc for example). So this might be e.g. libc calling because you did overwrite something. And the application must then terminate because it's impossible to continue or handle it, which is called failed assertion.

Upvotes: 11

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