portable signal handling

[Wayne A. Throop]

> henry at 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 <signal.h> 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      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw