CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++linux
heturing
heturing

Reputation: 150

What is under the hood when a process receive a signal?

I am writing a program that needs to catch the ctrl-c event. And I learned that I can call signal function or sigaction function in signal.h to customize what to do when the process receives a SIGINT signal. But I am also curious what is the mechanism for such a signal listener. In other words, how can a process keep waiting for a specific signal while continuing to execute its code?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 154

Answers (1)

Barmar
Barmar

Reputation: 780899

The process doesn't "wait" for the signal. Calling sigaction() tells the operating system to force the process to take the specified action when the process receives the specified signal. When this happens, the process is interrupted and forced to call the registered handler.

Upvotes: 3

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