sigvec(2)							System Calls Manual							 sigvec(2)

Name
       sigvec - software signal facilities

Syntax
       #include <signal.h>

       struct sigvec {
       void	 (*sv_handler)();
       sigset_t  sv_mask;
       int	 sv_flags;
       };

       sigvec(sig, vec, ovec)
       int sig;
       struct sigvec *vec, *ovec;

Description
       The  system defines a set of signals that can be delivered to a process.  Signal delivery resembles the occurrence of a hardware interrupt:
       the signal is blocked from further occurrence, the current process context is saved, and a new one is built.  A process can specify a  han-
       dler  to  which	a  signal  is delivered, or specify that a signal is to be blocked or ignored .  A process can also specify that a default
       action is to be taken by the system when a signal occurs.  Normally, signal handlers execute on the current stack of the process.  This can
       be changed, on a per-handler basis, so that signals are taken on a special signal stack.

       All  signals  have  the same priority.  Signal routines execute with the signal that caused their invocation blocked, but other signals can
       occur.  A global signal mask defines the set of signals currently blocked from delivery to a process.  The signal mask  for  a  process	is
       initialized from that of its parent (normally, 0).  It can be changed with a or call, or when a signal is delivered to the process.

       When  a	signal condition arises for a process, the signal is added to a set of signals pending for the process.  If the signal is not cur-
       rently blocked by the process, it is delivered to the process.  When a signal is delivered, the current state of the process  is  saved,  a
       new signal mask is calculated (as described later), and the signal handler is invoked.  The call to the handler is arranged so that, if the
       signal handling routine returns normally, the process resumes execution in the context from before the signal's delivery.  If  the  process
       wishes to resume in a different context, it must arrange to restore the previous context itself.

       When  a	signal	is  delivered to a process, a new signal mask is installed for the duration of the process's signal handler (or until a or
       call is made).  This mask is formed by taking the current signal mask, adding the signal to be delivered, and  ORing  in  the  signal  mask
       associated with the handler to be invoked.

       The System call assigns a handler for a specific signal.  If vec is nonzero, it specifies a handler routine and mask to be used when deliv-
       ering the specified signal.  Further, if the SV_ONSTACK bit is set in sv_flags, the system delivers the signal to the process on  a  signal
       stack, specified with If ovec is nonzero, the previous handling information for the signal is returned to the user.

       The following is a list of all signals with names as in the include file

       SIGHUP	 1    Hangup
       SIGINT	 2    Interrupt
       SIGQUIT	 3*   Quit
       SIGILL	 4*   Illegal instruction
       SIGTRAP	 5*   Trace trap
       SIGIOT	 6*   IOT instruction
       SIGEMT	 7*   EMT instruction
       SIGFPE	 8*   Floating point exception
       SIGKILL	 9    Kill (cannot be caught, blocked, or ignored)
       SIGBUS	 10*  Bus error
       SIGSEGV	 11*  Segmentation violation
       SIGSYS	 12*  Bad argument to system call
       SIGPIPE	 13   Write on a pipe with no one to read it
       SIGALRM	 14   Alarm clock
       SIGTERM	 15   Software termination signal
       SIGURG	 16.  Urgent condition present on socket
       SIGSTOP	 17+  Stop (cannot be caught, blocked, or ignored)
       SIGTSTP	 18+  Stop signal generated from keyboard
       SIGCONT	 19.  Continue after stop (cannot be blocked)
       SIGCHLD	 20.  Child status has changed
       SIGTTIN	 21+  Background read attempted from control terminal
       SIGTTOU	 22+  Background write attempted to control terminal
       SIGIO	 23.  I/O is possible on a descriptor (see fcntl(2))
       SIGXCPU	 24   Cpu time limit exceeded (see setrlimit(2))
       SIGXFSZ	 25   File size limit exceeded (see setrlimit(2))
       SIGVTALRM 26   Virtual time alarm (see setitimer(2))
       SIGPROF	 27   Profiling timer alarm (see setitimer(2))
       SIGWINCH  28.  Window size change
       SIGLOST	 29   Lock not reclaimed after server recovery
       SIGUSR1	 30   User-defined signal 1
       SIGUSR2	 31   User-defined signal 2
       SIGCLD	      System V name for SIGCHLD
       SIGABRT	      X/OPEN name for SIGIOT

       The signals marked with asterisks (*) in this list cause a core image if not caught or ignored.	Explanations of the meaning of the periods
       (.)  and plus signs (+) are included in the following paragraph.

       Once a signal handler is installed, it remains installed until another call is made or an is performed.	The default action  for  a  signal
       can  be reinstated by setting sv_handler to SIG_DFL. This default is termination (with a core image for signals marked with asterisks (*)),
       except for signals marked with periods (.) or plus signs (+).  Signals marked with periods (.) are discarded if the action is SIG_DFL. Sig-
       nals  marked  with  plus  signs	(+)  cause the process to stop.  If sv_handler is SIG_IGN, the signal is subsequently ignored, and pending
       instances of the signal are discarded.

       If a caught signal occurs during certain system calls, the call is normally restarted.  The call can be	forced	to  terminate  prematurely
       with an EINTR error return, by setting the SV_INTERRUPT bit in sv_flags.  The affected system calls are or on a slow device (such as a ter-
       minal, but not a file), and

       After a or the child inherits all signals, the signal mask, the signal stack, and the restart/interrupt flags.

       The system call resets all caught signals to default action and resets all signals to be caught on the user stack.  Ignored signals  remain
       ignored, the signal mask remains the same; signals that interrupt system calls continue to do so.

       The mask specified in vec is not allowed to block SIGKILL, SIGSTOP, or SIGCONT.	This is done silently by the system.

       The  SV_INTERRUPT  flag	is not available in ULTRIX 2.0 or earlier versions.  Therefore, it should not be used if backward compatibility is
       needed.

Return Values
       A zero (0) value indicates that the call succeeded.  A -1 return value indicates an error occurred, and errno is set to indicated the  rea-
       son.

Diagnostics
       The system call fails and no new signal handler is installed, if one of the following occurs:

       [EFAULT]       Either vec or ovec points to memory that is not a valid part of the process address space.

       [EINVAL]       Sig is not a valid signal number.

       [EINVAL]       An attempt is made to ignore or supply a handler for SIGKILL or SIGSTOP.

       [EINVAL]       An attempt is made to ignore SIGCONT (by default SIGCONT is ignored).

Notes
       The handler routine can be declared:
       void handler(sig, code, scp)
       int sig, code;
       struct sigcontext *scp;
       Here  sig  is  the  signal  number.   MIPS hardware exceptions are mapped to specific signals as defined by the following table.  Code is a
       parameter that is either a constant or zero.  The scp is a pointer to the sigcontext structure (defined in that is the context at the  time
       of the signal and is used to restore the context, if the signal handler returns.

       The  following defines the mapping of MIPS hardware exceptions to signals and codes.  All of these symbols are defined in either <signal.h>
       or <mips/cpu.h>:

       Hardware exception			   Signal	Code
       Integer overflow 			   SIGFPE	EXC_OV
       Segmentation violation			   SIGSEGV	SEXC_SEGV
       Illegal instruction			   SIGILL	EXC_II
       Coprocessor unusable			   SIGILL	SEXC_CPU
       Data bus error				   SIGBUS	EXC_DBE
       Instruction bus error			   SIGBUS	EXC_IBE
       Read address error			   SIGBUS	EXC_RADE
       Write address error			   SIGBUS	EXC_WADE
       User breakpoint (used by debuggers)	   SIGTRAP	BRK_USERBP
       Kernel breakpoint (used by prom) 	   SIGTRAP	BRK_KERNELBP
       Taken branch delay emulation		   SIGTRAP	BRK_BD_TAKEN
       Not taken branch delay emulation 	   SIGTRAP	BRK_BD_NOTTAKEN
       User single step (used by debuggers)	   SIGTRAP	BRK_SSTEPBP
       Overflow check				   SIGTRAP	BRK_OVERFLOW
       Divide by zero check			   SIGTRAP	BRK_DIVZERO
       Range error check			   SIGTRAP	BRK_RANGE

       When a signal handler is reached, the program counter in the signal context structure (sc_pc) points at the  instruction  that  caused  the
       exception, as modified by the branch delay bit in the cause register.  The cause register at the time of the exception is also saved in the
       sigcontext structure (sc_cause).  If the instruction that caused the exception is at a valid user address, it can  be  retrieved  with  the
       following code sequence:
       if(scp->sc_cause & CAUSE_BD){
	   branch_instruction = *(unsigned long *)(scp->sc_pc);
	   exception_instruction = *(unsigned long *)(scp->sc_pc + 4);
       }
       else
	   exception_instruction = *(unsigned long *)(scp->sc_pc);
       CAUSE_BD is defined in

       The  signal  handler  can  fix the cause of the exception and re-execute the instruction, emulate the instruction and then step over it, or
       perform some nonlocal redirection, such as a or an

       If corrective action is performed in the signal handler and the instruction that caused the exception would then execute without a  further
       exception, the signal handler simply returns and re-executes the instruction (even when the branch delay bit is set).

       If  execution  is  to continue after stepping over the instruction that caused the exception, the program counter must be advanced.  If the
       branch delay bit is set, the program counter is set to the target of the branch.  Otherwise, it is incremented by four.	This can  be  done
       with the following code sequence:
       if(scp->sc_cause & CAUSE_BD)
	   emulate_branch(scp, branch_instruction);
       else
	   scp->sc_pc += 4;
       Emulate_branch()  modifies  the	program  counter  value in the sigcontext structure to the target of the branch instruction.  See for more
       details.

       For SIGFPE's generated by floating-point instructions (code == 0) the floating-point control and status register at the time of the  excep-
       tion  is also saved in the sigcontext structure (sc_fpc_csr).  This register has the information on which exceptions have occurred.  When a
       signal handler is entered, the register contains the value at the time of the exception but with the exceptions bits cleared.  On a  return
       from  the signal handler, the exception bits in the floating-point control and status register are also cleared so that another SIGFPE will
       not occur (all other bits are restored from sc_fpc_csr).

       For SIGSEGV and SIGBUS errors, the faulting virtual address is saved in sc_badvaddr in the signal context structure.

       The SIGTRAPs caused by instructions noted in the previous table and all other yet to be defined instructions fill the code  parameter  with
       the first argument to the instruction (bits 25-16 of the instruction).

See Also
       kill(1), kill(2), ptrace(2), sigblock(2), sigpause(2), sigsetmask(2), sigstack(2), setjmp(3), siginterrupt(3), tty(4)

								       RISC								 sigvec(2)