SIGPAUSE(3) Linux Programmer's Manual SIGPAUSE(3)
NAME
sigpause - atomically release blocked signals and wait for interrupt
SYNOPSIS
#include <signal.h>
int sigpause(int sigmask); /* BSD (but see NOTES) */
int sigpause(int sig); /* System V / UNIX 95 */
DESCRIPTION
Don't use this function. Use sigsuspend(2) instead.
The function sigpause() is designed to wait for some signal. It changes the process's signal mask (set of blocked signals), and then waits
for a signal to arrive. Upon arrival of a signal, the original signal mask is restored.
RETURN VALUE
If sigpause() returns, it was interrupted by a signal and the return value is -1 with errno set to EINTR.
ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).
+-----------+---------------+---------+
|Interface | Attribute | Value |
+-----------+---------------+---------+
|sigpause() | Thread safety | MT-Safe |
+-----------+---------------+---------+
CONFORMING TO
The System V version of sigpause() is standardized in POSIX.1-2001. It is also specified in POSIX.1-2008, where it is marked obsolete.
NOTES
History
The classical BSD version of this function appeared in 4.2BSD. It sets the process's signal mask to sigmask. UNIX 95 standardized the
incompatible System V version of this function, which removes only the specified signal sig from the process's signal mask. The unfortu-
nate situation with two incompatible functions with the same name was solved by the sigsuspend(2) function, that takes a sigset_t * argu-
ment (instead of an int).
Linux notes
On Linux, this routine is a system call only on the Sparc (sparc64) architecture.
Glibc uses the BSD version if the _BSD_SOURCE feature test macro is defined and none of _POSIX_SOURCE, _POSIX_C_SOURCE, _XOPEN_SOURCE,
_GNU_SOURCE, or _SVID_SOURCE is defined. Otherwise, the System V version is used, and feature test macros must be defined as follows to
obtain the declaration:
* Since glibc 2.26: _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
* Glibc 2.25 and earlier: _XOPEN_SOURCE
Since glibc 2.19, only the System V version is exposed by <signal.h>; applications that formerly used the BSD sigpause() should be amended
to use sigsuspend(2).
SEE ALSO
kill(2), sigaction(2), sigprocmask(2), sigsuspend(2), sigblock(3), sigvec(3), feature_test_macros(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 4.15 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2017-09-15 SIGPAUSE(3)