Shell Programming and Scripting

I am having issues with trap not working inside a script. I am currently trying this on a Knoppix system V 5.1. What I would like to happen is when I press control c, a message gets echoed and the script is ended. For example:

Code:

#! /bin/bash
 
 
trap "echo CTRL c was pressed ; break" SIGINT SIGTERM 
 
 
while :
do
      :
done

When I press CTRL c in the above example, A message gets echoed and the loop is ended and that's the end of the script. Pretty straight forward; however, when I put a "sleep 5" in the while loop and run the script, then press CTRL c, no message is echoed to the screen. Also the loop does not exit. Ex:

Code:

#! /bin/bash
 
 
   trap "echo CTRL c was pressed ; break" SIGINT SIGTERM
 
   sleep 5
 
 
 
  while :
  do
        echo in loop now
        sleep 5
 
 done

***NOTE*** If you try this above code you will create an infinite loop and CTRL c. will no longer work.

Once I add in the sleep command in the loop, CTRL C no longer prints a message and no longer breaks out of the loop. Does anyone know how to get around this and why the trap stops working when a sleep command is used in the loop.

I was thinking it had something to do with the trap statements having to wait till the sleep 5 to finish running and then the trap handler gets executed, but the trap is never getting ran. I am guessing it has to do with something else. Thanks in advance for your help.

sleep invokes a wait like

Code:

nanosleep()

and sets a signal handler for SIGALRM.

But.

Code:

/usr/bin/sleep

is run in a separate child process. So, ctrl/c is sent to the child process not the parent.

It is analagous to running the

Code:

ls

command on a huge directory. ctrl/c stops the child

Code:

/usr/bin/ls

executable image before it dumps 10 zillion files to the screen, not the the parent process.


Lose the sleep command. It looks to me like you are trying out bash coding. ctrl/c only "works" on the parent when the parent is running an actual bash command like some kind of loop. Otherwise repeated ctrl/c keystrokes are required, so that the signal get delivered during the execution of a susceptible piece of code.

Okay, sleep is ran in a child process. That makes sense, but when I press CTRL c for the child process, why does the child process not echo the message to the screen?

Code:

trap "echo CTRL c was pressed ; break" SIGINT SIGTERM

Isn't the trap modification getting sent to the child process as well or does this modification only get applied to the parent process?

Is there a way to run sleep in the parent shell and not a child shell, so my trap modification will work?

I am not familiar with

Code:

nanosleep()

Is it pretty much the same as sleep, except in nano-seconds instead of seconds?

you said that it sets up a signal handler for SIGALRM. If I add in SIGALRM into the trap command will this resolve the issue? ex:

Code:

trap "echo CTRL c was pressed ; break" SIGINT SIGTERM SIGALRM

Then again, will this just get applied to the parent shell and not the child shell?

Please be thorough in your response, so I can understand what's going on. Thanks

Also Is there a way to tell what commands, like sleep, are being ran as a child process? Is there a way to make these commands to be ran in a parent process?

All commands unless they are bash internals are run as a child process.

As an example try replacing the external sleep command with the internal read like this:

Code:

while :
  do
        echo in loop now
        read -s -N 1024 -t 5
 
 done

I ran your script with bash and dash and both worked fine.

Control-C sends SIGINT to every process in the foreground process group. Non-interactive shells run everything in the same process group, so when that process group is the foreground process group, Control-C sends a SIGINT to that shell, to all of its children, to all of its children's children, etc.

This suggests to me that you are executing that code in an interactive environment, where each command runs in its own process group. This would put sleep in a different process group from its parent shell. Since sleep is then the only member of the foreground process group, it is the only process to be sent a signal.

Are you sourcing the script at a command prompt with . or source? If yes, that explains the behavior. sleep is in a process group separate from the shell which invoked it, so the shell is not sent the signal.

If you are not sourcing the script, be specific and tell us exactly what you're doing. Also, while the script is running, collect the pid, ppid, pgid, and stat information for the relevant commands and share it with us. For this, the following command will probably work on your system.

Code:

ps -o pid,ppid,pgid,stat,args -t /dev/pts/4

Change /dev/pts/4 to the actual terminal you're using (this can be determined by typing tty at its prompt).

Regards,
Alister

Her eis my test result script and result. 3 methods to handle int in while loop.

Code:

repeat=1

realexit()
{
   echo " - int EXIT has done"
}

ctrlc()
{
   echo " - int INT (ctrl-C)"
   #exit 1   # stop the script
   repeat=0
}

####MAIN######

trap 'realexit' EXIT

# different methods to interrupt while using CTRL-C
# all works in ksh93 and bash, last version not in dash
trap 'ctrlc' INT
#trap 'echo " CCC " ; repeat=0 ' INT
#trap 'echo " Ctrl-C Break " ; break ' INT   # not while in dash, break the script

trap ':' HUP QUIT # nop - do nothing

while :
do
  repeat=1
  while ((repeat==1))
  do
    date
    echo "proc:$$"
    sleep 30
  done
  echo "while end"
done