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From: tomp@hcx1.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: No more signals
Message-ID: <48300005@hcx1>
Date: Tue, 16-Jun-87 09:49:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hcx1.48300005
Posted: Tue Jun 16 09:49:00 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Jun-87 05:41:01 EDT
Lines: 20
Nf-ID: #N:hcx1:48300005:000:1132
Nf-From: hcx1.SSD.HARRIS.COM!tomp    Jun 16 09:49:00 1987


I am trying to implement the SIGWINCH (window size change) signal and ran into
an interesting problem: no more signals are left. Our kernel is a combination
of both Berkeley and AT&T. Our machine has a 32 bit word size. The system keeps
a mask of the signals and checks it in such places as system call entry/exit.
I think that making up some sort of 64 bit structure to hold the mask would be 
a performance hit because the signal mask is checked in critical places. The
other solution is to overload an existing signal, but this isn't a general
solution.

Anyways, has anyone out there ran into (or even thought about) this problem. If
so, I would like to get ideas about how this problem will be addressed in the
future. It is going to affect everyone pretty soon as Berkeley only has one
signal left (AT&T has about 8 left).
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