SIGINT (POSIX)

Infobox Computing signal
name = SIGINT
description = Terminal interrupt signal
action = Abnormal termination of the processOn POSIX-compliant platforms, SIGINT is the signal sent to a process when a user wishes to interrupt it. In source code, SIGINT is a symbolic constant defined in the header file signal.h. Symbolic signal names are used because a signal's numeric value can vary across platforms; on the vast majority of systems, it is signal #2

Etymology

"SIG" is a common prefix for signal names. "INT" is an abbreviated form of "interrupt" or "interactive".

Usage

SIGINT is sent when the user on the process' terminal presses the "interrupt the running process" key — typically Control-C, but on some systems, the "delete" character or "break" key (the latter is not an ASCII character, but an out-of-band signal such as an electrical condition on a serial port).

ee also

* [http://www.cons.org/cracauer/sigint.html In-depth discussion of SIGINT handling]