NAME

IPC::Signal::Force - force default handling of a signal

SYNOPSIS

use IPC::Signal::Force qw(force_raise);

force_raise "TERM";

DESCRIPTION

This module exports one function, force_raise, which invokes a default signal handler regardless of the signal's current handling.

FUNCTIONS

force_raise(SIGNAL)

SIGNAL must be the name of a signal (e.g., "TERM"). The specified signal is delivered to the current process, with the handler for the signal temporarily reset to the default. The signal is also temporarily unblocked if it was initially blocked. The overall effect is to synchronously invoke the default handler for the signal, regardless of how the signal would be handled the rest of the time.

This is mainly useful in a handler for the same signal, if the handler wants to do something itself and also call the default handler. For example, a handler for SIGTERM might shut down the program neatly and then force_raise("TERM"), which achieves a graceful shutdown while also letting the parent process see that the process terminated due to a signal rather than by exit().

A similar, but slightly more complex, case is a handler for SIGTSTP (tty-initiated stop), which in a curses-style program might need to restore sane tty settings, force_raise("TSTP"), and then (after the process has been restarted) reassert control of the tty and redraw the screen.

BUGS

If the signal in question is delivered from somewhere else while force_raise is executing, there is a race condition that makes it is possible for the default signal handler to be called more than once. There appears to be no way to avoid this in POSIX.

Perl's treatment of signals under threading is broken. force_raise, as with anything interesting around signals, can't be expected to work in multi-threaded Perl.

SEE ALSO

IPC::Signal, "kill" in perlfunc

AUTHOR

Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2004, 2007, 2010, 2017 Andrew Main (Zefram) <zefram@fysh.org>

LICENSE

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.