Name

psignal, strsignal, sys_siglist, sys_signame - system signal messages

Library

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

Synopsis

#include <signal.h>

void
psignal(unsigned sig, const char *s);

extern const char * const sys_siglist[]; extern const char * const sys_signame[];

#include <string.h>

char *
strsignal(int sig);

Description

The psignal() and strsignal() functions locate the descriptive message string for a signal number.

The strsignal() function accepts a signal number argument sig and returns a pointer to the corresponding message string.

The psignal() function accepts a signal number argument sig and writes it to the standard error. If the argument s is non-NULL and does not point to the null character, s is written to the standard error file descriptor prior to the message string, immediately followed by a colon and a space. If the signal number is not recognized (sigaction(2) ), the string ``Unknown signal'' is produced.

The message strings can be accessed directly through the external array sys_siglist, indexed by recognized signal numbers. The external array sys_signame is used similarly and contains short, lower-case abbreviations for signals which are useful for recognizing signal names in user input. The defined variable NSIG contains a count of the strings in sys_siglist and sys_signame.

See Also

sigaction(2) , perror(3) , strerror(3)

History

The psignal() function appeared in 4.2BSD.

Table of Contents

• Name
• Library
• Synopsis
• Description
• See Also
• History