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Top Forums Programming Runaway SIGALRM signal handler Post 302183656 by stewartw on Wednesday 9th of April 2008 03:32:32 PM
Old 04-09-2008
Runaway SIGALRM signal handler

I have written a program to demonstrate a problem I have encountered when using BSD style asynchronous input using the O_ASYNC flag in conjunction with a real time interval timer sending regular SIGALRM signals to the program. The SIGIO handler obeys all safe practices, using only an atomic update to a volatile sig_atomic_t variable.

The program is below. The idea is that when the user enters a 'q', the program is supposed to stop. It does not. If you uncomment the printf statement in teh main program's loop you will see that the loop is exited, but the return statement is never reached because the SIGALRMS seem to keep the program alive. Be prepared to kill it with a Ctrl-C.

If I use the AIO style asynchronous I/O there is no problem. It is related to the O_ASYNC flag. (In fact if you simply call fcntl() and tell the kernel to send signals to the process, without setting the flag, the same problem will occur! )

Can anyone explain what is wrong?

Code:
#include    <stdio.h>
#include    <signal.h>
#include    <sys/time.h>
#include    <fcntl.h>


void    on_alarm(int);    /* handler for alarm    */
void    on_input(int);    /* handler for keybd    */
int     set_timer( int which, long initial, long repeat );

volatile sig_atomic_t   finished  = 0;

int main( int argc, char * argv[])
{
    int  fd_flags;
    int k = 0;
    struct sigaction newhandler;    
    sigset_t         blocked;       

    newhandler.sa_handler = on_input;  /* handler function    */
    newhandler.sa_flags   = 0;   

    sigemptyset(&blocked);             
    newhandler.sa_mask = blocked;      
    if ( sigaction(SIGIO, &newhandler, NULL) == -1 )
        perror("sigaction");

    newhandler.sa_handler = on_alarm;  /* handler function    */
    if ( sigaction(SIGALRM, &newhandler, NULL) == -1 )
        perror("sigaction");


    fcntl(0, F_SETOWN, getpid());
    fd_flags = fcntl(0, F_GETFL);
    fcntl(0, F_SETFL, (fd_flags|O_ASYNC));

    set_timer(ITIMER_REAL, 500, 500); 


    while( !finished  )    {         
       pause();
       printf("still in loop and finished = %d\n", finished);
    }
    return 0;
}
void on_input(int signum)
{
    int  c = getchar();          
    if ( c == 'q' )
        finished = 1;
}

void on_alarm(int signum)
{
    static int k = 0;
    printf("call number %d\n", k++);
}


int set_timer( int which, long initial, long repeat )
{
    struct itimerval itimer;
    long secs;

    // initialize initial delay
    secs = initial / 1000 ; 
    itimer.it_value.tv_sec     = secs;    
    itimer.it_value.tv_usec    = (initial - secs*1000 ) * 1000 ;   

    // initialize repeat inveral
    secs = repeat / 1000 ; 
    itimer.it_interval.tv_sec  = secs;     
    itimer.it_interval.tv_usec = (repeat - secs*1000 ) * 1000 ;
    
    return setitimer(which, &itimer, NULL);
}


Last edited by Perderabo; 04-10-2008 at 11:30 PM.. Reason: Adding code tags... it's just 13 little keystrokes to readability.
 

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ALARM(3)						   BSD Library Functions Manual 						  ALARM(3)

NAME
alarm -- set signal timer alarm LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h> unsigned int alarm(unsigned int seconds); DESCRIPTION
This interface is made obsolete by setitimer(2). The alarm() function sets a timer to deliver the signal SIGALRM to the calling process after the specified number of seconds. If an alarm has already been set with alarm() but has not been delivered, another call to alarm() will supersede the prior call. The request alarm(0) voids the current alarm and the signal SIGALRM will not be delivered. Due to setitimer(2) restriction the maximum number of seconds allowed is 100000000. RETURN VALUES
The return value of alarm() is the amount of time left on the timer from a previous call to alarm(). If no alarm is currently set, the return value is 0. SEE ALSO
setitimer(2), sigaction(2), sigsuspend(2), signal(3), sleep(3), ualarm(3), usleep(3) HISTORY
An alarm() function appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX. BSD
April 19, 1994 BSD
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