Thread: problem with signals

Hi,

I'm experiencing a problem with signals between two processes. One process registers two simple signal handlers and runs an infinite loop. The other sends it a SIGUSR1 to pause it, runs a bit of code, and then sends SIGUSR2 to awaken it. Thus far it works fine.

However, if you try to run the sending process a second time while the first is still running, the looping process will quit instead of pausing and resuming again.

Any idea what's wrong?

Here's the code... note the sending process has to run with an argument which is the pid of the looping process.

handler.c

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>

void hpause(int signo)
{
  pause();
}

void hresume(int signo)
{

}

int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
  signal(SIGUSR1, hpause);
  signal(SIGUSR2, hresume);
  
  while (1)
    printf("1 ");
}

pause.c

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>

#define OTHERPROCES atoi(argv[i])

int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
  int i = 0;
  kill(OTHERPROCESS, SIGUSR1);
  
  for (i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
    printf("a b c d e f g ");

  kill(OTHERPROCESS, SIGUSR2);
}

Yes I am working on Solaris.

According to the link you gave me, the code should be ok... only pause() is used in the signal handler and it is in the safe list. So I guess it must be something else.

A spelling error?

Code:

#define OTHERPROCES atoi(argv[i])

int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
  int i = 0;
  kill(OTHERPROCESS, SIGUSR1);
  
  for (i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
    printf("a b c d e f g ");

  kill(OTHERPROCESS, SIGUSR2);
}

Hi, I'm working on this signals problem with cnchybrid. The code he pasted must have been an old, flawed version. This is the latest version of pause.c:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>

#define OTHERPROCESS atoi(argv[1])

int main(int argc, char ** argv)
{
  int i = 0;
  printf("Sending SIGUSR1 to %d\n", OTHERPROCESS);
  kill(OTHERPROCESS, SIGUSR1);
  printf("Sent SIGUSR1\n");
  
  for (i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
    printf("a b c d e f g ");

  printf("Sending SIGUSR2\n");
  kill(OTHERPROCESS, SIGUSR2);
  printf("Sent SIGUSR2\n");
}

I can assure you that the latest version of our code works as described... the signals are sent, but pausing a second time terminates the looping process.

Thanks for your help. I didn't really understand how those signal sets and masks and stuff work, but I still followed the hint that signal handlers are being reset to default behaviour, and I made a signal handler reset them to required behaviour.

Code:

void hresume(int signo)
{
  signal(SIGUSR1, hpause);
  signal(SIGUSR2, hresume);
}

This solved the problem. Is it a good solution or can there be consequences I'm not considering? For example, if the process is paused and receives a non-SIGUSR2 signal, will the signal be lost or will it remain pending and be handled when the process resumes?

If it's a bad solution, can you suggest alternatives? (I'm guessing I have to use those sigsets)