| Description | Alarm clock |
|---|---|
| Default action | Abnormal termination of the process |
| SA_SIGINFO macros | |
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On POSIX-compliant platforms, SIGALRM is the signal sent to a process when a time limit has elapsed. The symbolic constant for SIGALRM is defined in the signal.h header file. Symbolic signal names are used because signal numbers can vary across platforms.
SIG is a common prefix for signal names. ALRM stands for alarm.
Computer programs often use SIGALRM to make a long-running action time out, or to provide a way of performing an action at regular intervals.
SIGALRM is generally raised a whole number of seconds after an alarm system call is made. It is sometimes used to implement the sleep function; consequently, programs cannot reliably use alarm to "wake up" from a delay caused by sleep [1].
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