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SIGTIMEDWAIT(3P) POSIX Programmer's Manual SIGTIMEDWAIT(3P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (con-
sult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on
Linux.
NAME
sigtimedwait, sigwaitinfo - wait for queued signals (REALTIME)
SYNOPSIS
#include <signal.h>
int sigtimedwait(const sigset_t *restrict set,
siginfo_t *restrict info,
const struct timespec *restrict timeout);
int sigwaitinfo(const sigset_t *restrict set,
siginfo_t *restrict info);
DESCRIPTION
The sigtimedwait() function shall be equivalent to sigwaitinfo() except that if none of the signals specified by set are
pending, sigtimedwait() shall wait for the time interval specified in the timespec structure referenced by timeout. If
the timespec structure pointed to by timeout is zero-valued and if none of the signals specified by set are pending, then
sigtimedwait() shall return immediately with an error. If timeout is the NULL pointer, the behavior is unspecified. If
the Monotonic Clock option is supported, the CLOCK_MONOTONIC clock shall be used to measure the time interval specified
by the timeout argument.
The sigwaitinfo() function selects the pending signal from the set specified by set. Should any of multiple pending sig-
nals in the range SIGRTMIN to SIGRTMAX be selected, it shall be the lowest numbered one. The selection order between
realtime and non-realtime signals, or between multiple pending non-realtime signals, is unspecified. If no signal in set
is pending at the time of the call, the calling thread shall be suspended until one or more signals in set become pending
or until it is interrupted by an unblocked, caught signal.
The sigwaitinfo() function shall be equivalent to the sigwait() function if the info argument is NULL. If the info argu-
ment is non-NULL, the sigwaitinfo() function shall be equivalent to sigwait(), except that the selected signal number
shall be stored in the si_signo member, and the cause of the signal shall be stored in the si_code member. If any value
is queued to the selected signal, the first such queued value shall be dequeued and, if the info argument is non-NULL,
the value shall be stored in the si_value member of info. The system resource used to queue the signal shall be released
and returned to the system for other use. If no value is queued, the content of the si_value member is undefined. If no
further signals are queued for the selected signal, the pending indication for that signal shall be reset.
RETURN VALUE
Upon successful completion (that is, one of the signals specified by set is pending or is generated) sigwaitinfo() and
sigtimedwait() shall return the selected signal number. Otherwise, the function shall return a value of -1 and set errno
to indicate the error.
ERRORS
The sigtimedwait() function shall fail if:
EAGAIN No signal specified by set was generated within the specified timeout period.
The sigtimedwait() and sigwaitinfo() functions may fail if:
EINTR The wait was interrupted by an unblocked, caught signal. It shall be documented in system documentation whether
this error causes these functions to fail.
The sigtimedwait() function may also fail if:
EINVAL The timeout argument specified a tv_nsec value less than zero or greater than or equal to 1000 million.
An implementation only checks for this error if no signal is pending in set and it is necessary to wait.
The following sections are informative.
EXAMPLES
None.
APPLICATION USAGE
The sigtimedwait() function times out and returns an [EAGAIN] error. Application writers should note that this is incon-
sistent with other functions such as pthread_cond_timedwait() that return [ETIMEDOUT].
RATIONALE
Existing programming practice on realtime systems uses the ability to pause waiting for a selected set of events and han-
dle the first event that occurs in-line instead of in a signal-handling function. This allows applications to be written
in an event-directed style similar to a state machine. This style of programming is useful for largescale transaction
processing in which the overall throughput of an application and the ability to clearly track states are more important
than the ability to minimize the response time of individual event handling.
It is possible to construct a signal-waiting macro function out of the realtime signal function mechanism defined in this
volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. However, such a macro has to include the definition of a generalized handler for all sig-
nals to be waited on. A significant portion of the overhead of handler processing can be avoided if the signal-waiting
function is provided by the kernel. This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 therefore provides two signal-waiting functions-
one that waits indefinitely and one with a timeout-as part of the overall realtime signal function specification.
The specification of a function with a timeout allows an application to be written that can be broken out of a wait after
a set period of time if no event has occurred. It was argued that setting a timer event before the wait and recognizing
the timer event in the wait would also implement the same functionality, but at a lower performance level. Because of the
performance degradation associated with the user-level specification of a timer event and the subsequent cancellation of
that timer event after the wait completes for a valid event, and the complexity associated with handling potential race
conditions associated with the user-level method, the separate function has been included.
Note that the semantics of the sigwaitinfo() function are nearly identical to that of the sigwait() function defined by
this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. The only difference is that sigwaitinfo() returns the queued signal value in the
value argument. The return of the queued value is required so that applications can differentiate between multiple events
queued to the same signal number.
The two distinct functions are being maintained because some implementations may choose to implement the POSIX Threads
Extension functions and not implement the queued signals extensions. Note, though, that sigwaitinfo() does not return the
queued value if the value argument is NULL, so the POSIX Threads Extension sigwait() function can be implemented as a
macro on sigwaitinfo().
The sigtimedwait() function was separated from the sigwaitinfo() function to address concerns regarding the overloading
of the timeout pointer to indicate indefinite wait (no timeout), timed wait, and immediate return, and concerns regarding
consistency with other functions where the conditional and timed waits were separate functions from the pure blocking
function. The semantics of sigtimedwait() are specified such that sigwaitinfo() could be implemented as a macro with a
NULL pointer for timeout.
The sigwait functions provide a synchronous mechanism for threads to wait for asynchronously-generated signals. One
important question was how many threads that are suspended in a call to a sigwait() function for a signal should return
from the call when the signal is sent. Four choices were considered:
1. Return an error for multiple simultaneous calls to sigwait functions for the same signal.
2. One or more threads return.
3. All waiting threads return.
4. Exactly one thread returns.
Prohibiting multiple calls to sigwait() for the same signal was felt to be overly restrictive. The "one or more" behavior
made implementation of conforming packages easy at the expense of forcing POSIX threads clients to protect against multi-
ple simultaneous calls to sigwait() in application code in order to achieve predictable behavior. There was concern that
the "all waiting threads" behavior would result in "signal broadcast storms", consuming excessive CPU resources by repli-
cating the signals in the general case. Furthermore, no convincing examples could be presented that delivery to all was
either simpler or more powerful than delivery to one.
Thus, the consensus was that exactly one thread that was suspended in a call to a sigwait function for a signal should
return when that signal occurs. This is not an onerous restriction as:
* A multi-way signal wait can be built from the single-way wait.
* Signals should only be handled by application-level code, as library routines cannot guess what the application wants
to do with signals generated for the entire process.
* Applications can thus arrange for a single thread to wait for any given signal and call any needed routines upon its
arrival.
In an application that is using signals for interprocess communication, signal processing is typically done in one place.
Alternatively, if the signal is being caught so that process cleanup can be done, the signal handler thread can call sep-
arate process cleanup routines for each portion of the application. Since the application main line started each portion
of the application, it is at the right abstraction level to tell each portion of the application to clean up.
Certainly, there exist programming styles where it is logical to consider waiting for a single signal in multiple
threads. A simple sigwait_multiple() routine can be constructed to achieve this goal. A possible implementation would be
to have each sigwait_multiple() caller registered as having expressed interest in a set of signals. The caller then waits
on a thread-specific condition variable. A single server thread calls a sigwait() function on the union of all registered
signals. When the sigwait() function returns, the appropriate state is set and condition variables are broadcast. New
sigwait_multiple() callers may cause the pending sigwait() call to be canceled and reissued in order to update the set of
signals being waited for.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
Realtime Signals, pause(), pthread_sigmask(), sigaction(), sigpending(), sigsuspend(), sigwait(), the Base Definitions
volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, <signal.h>, <time.h>
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for
Information Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6, Copy-
right (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.open-
group.org/unix/online.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2003 SIGTIMEDWAIT(3P)
