NAME

sigprocmask —

manipulate current signal mask

LIBRARY

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS

#include <signal.h>

int
sigprocmask(int how, const sigset_t * restrict set, sigset_t * restrict oset);

DESCRIPTION

The sigprocmask() system call examines and/or changes the current signal mask (those signals that are blocked from delivery). Signals are blocked if they are members of the current signal mask set.

If set is not null, the action of sigprocmask() depends on the value of the how argument. The signal mask is changed as a function of the specified set and the current mask. The function is specified by how using one of the following values from <signal.h>:

SIG_BLOCK: The new mask is the union of the current mask and the specified set.
SIG_UNBLOCK: The new mask is the intersection of the current mask and the complement of the specified set.
SIG_SETMASK: The current mask is replaced by the specified set.

If oset is not null, it is set to the previous value of the signal mask. When set is null, the value of how is insignificant and the mask remains unset providing a way to examine the signal mask without modification.

The system quietly disallows SIGKILL or SIGSTOP to be blocked.

In threaded applications, pthread_sigmask(3) must be used instead of sigprocmask().

RETURN VALUES

The sigprocmask() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The sigprocmask() system call will fail and the signal mask will be unchanged if one of the following occurs:

[EINVAL]: The how argument has a value other than those listed here.

STANDARDS

The sigprocmask() system call is expected to conform to IEEE Std 1003.1-1990 (“POSIX.1”).