'\" t .\" Copyright (c) 2005 by Michael Kerrisk .\" .\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft .\" .TH sigvec 3 2023-02-05 "Linux man-pages 6.03" .SH NAME sigvec, sigblock, sigsetmask, siggetmask, sigmask \- BSD signal API .SH LIBRARY Standard C library .RI ( libc ", " \-lc ) .SH SYNOPSIS .nf .B #include .PP .BI "int sigvec(int " sig ", const struct sigvec *" vec ", struct sigvec *" ovec ); .PP .BI "int sigmask(int " signum ); .PP .BI "int sigblock(int " mask ); .BI "int sigsetmask(int " mask ); .B int siggetmask(void); .fi .PP .RS -4 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see .BR feature_test_macros (7)): .RE .PP All functions shown above: .nf Since glibc 2.19: _DEFAULT_SOURCE glibc 2.19 and earlier: _BSD_SOURCE .fi .SH DESCRIPTION These functions are provided in glibc as a compatibility interface for programs that make use of the historical BSD signal API. This API is obsolete: new applications should use the POSIX signal API .RB ( sigaction (2), .BR sigprocmask (2), etc.). .PP The .BR sigvec () function sets and/or gets the disposition of the signal .I sig (like the POSIX .BR sigaction (2)). If .I vec is not NULL, it points to a .I sigvec structure that defines the new disposition for .IR sig . If .I ovec is not NULL, it points to a .I sigvec structure that is used to return the previous disposition of .IR sig . To obtain the current disposition of .I sig without changing it, specify NULL for .IR vec , and a non-null pointer for .IR ovec . .PP The dispositions for .B SIGKILL and .B SIGSTOP cannot be changed. .PP The .I sigvec structure has the following form: .PP .in +4n .EX struct sigvec { void (*sv_handler)(int); /* Signal disposition */ int sv_mask; /* Signals to be blocked in handler */ int sv_flags; /* Flags */ }; .EE .in .PP The .I sv_handler field specifies the disposition of the signal, and is either: the address of a signal handler function; .BR SIG_DFL , meaning the default disposition applies for the signal; or .BR SIG_IGN , meaning that the signal is ignored. .PP If .I sv_handler specifies the address of a signal handler, then .I sv_mask specifies a mask of signals that are to be blocked while the handler is executing. In addition, the signal for which the handler is invoked is also blocked. Attempts to block .B SIGKILL or .B SIGSTOP are silently ignored. .PP If .I sv_handler specifies the address of a signal handler, then the .I sv_flags field specifies flags controlling what happens when the handler is called. This field may contain zero or more of the following flags: .TP .B SV_INTERRUPT If the signal handler interrupts a blocking system call, then upon return from the handler the system call is not restarted: instead it fails with the error .BR EINTR . If this flag is not specified, then system calls are restarted by default. .TP .B SV_RESETHAND Reset the disposition of the signal to the default before calling the signal handler. If this flag is not specified, then the handler remains established until explicitly removed by a later call to .BR sigvec () or until the process performs an .BR execve (2). .TP .B SV_ONSTACK Handle the signal on the alternate signal stack (historically established under BSD using the obsolete .BR sigstack () function; the POSIX replacement is .BR sigaltstack (2)). .PP The .BR sigmask () macro constructs and returns a "signal mask" for .IR signum . For example, we can initialize the .I vec.sv_mask field given to .BR sigvec () using code such as the following: .PP .in +4n .EX vec.sv_mask = sigmask(SIGQUIT) | sigmask(SIGABRT); /* Block SIGQUIT and SIGABRT during handler execution */ .EE .in .PP The .BR sigblock () function adds the signals in .I mask to the process's signal mask (like POSIX .IR sigprocmask(SIG_BLOCK) ), and returns the process's previous signal mask. Attempts to block .B SIGKILL or .B SIGSTOP are silently ignored. .PP The .BR sigsetmask () function sets the process's signal mask to the value given in .I mask (like POSIX .IR sigprocmask(SIG_SETMASK) ), and returns the process's previous signal mask. .PP The .BR siggetmask () function returns the process's current signal mask. This call is equivalent to .IR sigblock(0) . .SH RETURN VALUE The .BR sigvec () function returns 0 on success; on error, it returns \-1 and sets .I errno to indicate the error. .PP The .BR sigblock () and .BR sigsetmask () functions return the previous signal mask. .PP The .BR sigmask () macro returns the signal mask for .IR signum . .SH ERRORS See the ERRORS under .BR sigaction (2) and .BR sigprocmask (2). .SH VERSIONS Starting with glibc 2.21, the GNU C library no longer exports the .BR sigvec () function as part of the ABI. (To ensure backward compatibility, the glibc symbol versioning scheme continues to export the interface to binaries linked against older versions of the library.) .SH ATTRIBUTES For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see .BR attributes (7). .ad l .nh .TS allbox; lbx lb lb l l l. Interface Attribute Value T{ .BR sigvec (), .BR sigmask (), .BR sigblock (), .BR sigsetmask (), .BR siggetmask () T} Thread safety MT-Safe .TE .hy .ad .sp 1 .SH STANDARDS All of these functions were in 4.3BSD, except .BR siggetmask (), whose origin is unclear. These functions are obsolete: do not use them in new programs. .SH NOTES On 4.3BSD, the .BR signal () function provided reliable semantics (as when calling .BR sigvec () with .I vec.sv_mask equal to 0). On System V, .BR signal () provides unreliable semantics. POSIX.1 leaves these aspects of .BR signal () unspecified. See .BR signal (2) for further details. .PP In order to wait for a signal, BSD and System V both provided a function named .BR sigpause (3), but this function has a different argument on the two systems. See .BR sigpause (3) for details. .SH SEE ALSO .BR kill (2), .BR pause (2), .BR sigaction (2), .BR signal (2), .BR sigprocmask (2), .BR raise (3), .BR sigpause (3), .BR sigset (3), .BR signal (7)