Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!gatech!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw From: throopw@xyzzy.UUCP (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: portable signal handling Message-ID: <755@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 7 Apr 88 14:58:24 GMT References: <12578@brl-adm.ARPA> <1988Mar25.172355.348@utzoo.uucp> <1988Apr5.213059.1457@utzoo.uucp> Organization: Data General, RTP NC. Lines: 17 Subject-Was: volatile > henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) > I'm only gonna say this one more time: just about the only fully portable > thing a signal handler can do is set a flag. Not just any flag, but a > flag of type sig_atomic_t, defined in in an ANSI C implementation. This reminds me of an issue I'd thought of before. If the only portable thing that receipt of a signal can provoke is the setting of a flag, why doesn't ANSI specify signal catching routines where the user can specify SIG_DFL, SIG_IGN, or the address of a flag of type sig_atomic_t? The current non-portable, more general routines could be kept as "common extensions", but the more portable thing would be required. -- Everyone can be taught to scilpt: Michelangelo would have had to be taught how not to. So it is with the great programmers. --- Alan J. Perlis -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw