PAUSE(P)						     POSIX Programmer's Manual							  PAUSE(P)

NAME

       pause - suspend the thread until a signal is received

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       int pause(void);

DESCRIPTION

       The  pause() function shall suspend the calling thread until delivery of a signal whose action is either to execute a signal-catching func-
       tion or to terminate the process.

       If the action is to terminate the process, pause() shall not return.

       If the action is to execute a signal-catching function, pause() shall return after the signal-catching function returns.

RETURN VALUE

       Since pause() suspends thread execution indefinitely unless interrupted by a signal, there is no  successful  completion  return  value.  A
       value of -1 shall be returned and errno set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

       The pause() function shall fail if:

       EINTR  A signal is caught by the calling process and control is returned from the signal-catching function.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

       None.

APPLICATION USAGE

       Many  common uses of pause() have timing windows. The scenario involves checking a condition related to a signal and, if the signal has not
       occurred, calling pause(). When the signal occurs between the check and the call to pause(), the process  often	blocks	indefinitely.  The
       sigprocmask() and sigsuspend() functions can be used to avoid this type of problem.

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       sigsuspend() , the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <unistd.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technol-
       ogy -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
       Electrical  and	Electronics  Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE
       and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can  be  obtained
       online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

IEEE
/The Open Group						       2003								  PAUSE(P)