1SIGQUEUE(3P)               POSIX Programmer's Manual              SIGQUEUE(3P)
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PROLOG

6       This  manual  page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux
7       implementation of this interface may differ (consult the  corresponding
8       Linux  manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
9       not be implemented on Linux.
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NAME

12       sigqueue - queue a signal to a process (REALTIME)
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SYNOPSIS

15       #include <signal.h>
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17       int sigqueue(pid_t pid, int signo, const union sigval value);
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DESCRIPTION

21       The sigqueue() function shall cause the signal specified by signo to be
22       sent with the value specified by value to the process specified by pid.
23       If signo is zero (the null signal), error checking is performed but  no
24       signal  is  actually  sent.  The  null  signal can be used to check the
25       validity of pid.
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27       The conditions required for a process to have  permission  to  queue  a
28       signal to another process are the same as for the kill() function.
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30       The  sigqueue() function shall return immediately. If SA_SIGINFO is set
31       for signo and if the resources were available to queue the signal,  the
32       signal shall be queued and sent to the receiving process. If SA_SIGINFO
33       is not set for signo, then signo shall be sent at  least  once  to  the
34       receiving process; it is unspecified whether value shall be sent to the
35       receiving process as a result of this call.
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37       If the value of pid causes  signo  to  be  generated  for  the  sending
38       process,  and  if signo is not blocked for the calling thread and if no
39       other thread has signo unblocked or is waiting in a sigwait()  function
40       for signo, either signo or at least the pending, unblocked signal shall
41       be delivered to the  calling  thread  before  the  sigqueue()  function
42       returns.  Should  any multiple pending signals in the range SIGRTMIN to
43       SIGRTMAX be selected for delivery, it shall be the lowest numbered one.
44       The  selection  order  between  realtime  and  non-realtime signals, or
45       between multiple pending non-realtime signals, is unspecified.
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RETURN VALUE

48       Upon successful  completion,  the  specified  signal  shall  have  been
49       queued,  and the sigqueue() function shall return a value of zero. Oth‐
50       erwise, the function shall return a value of -1 and set errno to  indi‐
51       cate the error.
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ERRORS

54       The sigqueue() function shall fail if:
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56       EAGAIN No  resources are available to queue the signal. The process has
57              already queued {SIGQUEUE_MAX} signals that are still pending  at
58              the  receiver(s),  or  a  system-wide  resource  limit  has been
59              exceeded.
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61       EINVAL The value of the signo argument is  an  invalid  or  unsupported
62              signal number.
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64       EPERM  The  process does not have the appropriate privilege to send the
65              signal to the receiving process.
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67       ESRCH  The process pid does not exist.
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70       The following sections are informative.
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EXAMPLES

73       None.
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APPLICATION USAGE

76       None.
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RATIONALE

79       The sigqueue() function allows an application to queue a realtime  sig‐
80       nal to itself or to another process, specifying the application-defined
81       value. This is common practice in  realtime  applications  on  existing
82       realtime  systems.  It was felt that specifying another function in the
83       sig... name space already carved out  for  signals  was  preferable  to
84       extending the interface to kill().
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86       Such a function became necessary when the put/get event function of the
87       message queues was removed. It should  be  noted  that  the  sigqueue()
88       function  implies reduced performance in a security-conscious implemen‐
89       tation as the access permissions between the sender and  receiver  have
90       to  be  checked  on  each  send  when the pid is resolved into a target
91       process. Such access checks were necessary only at message  queue  open
92       in the previous interface.
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94       The  standard  developers required that sigqueue() have the same seman‐
95       tics with respect to the null signal as kill(), and that the same  per‐
96       mission checking be used. But because of the difficulty of implementing
97       the "broadcast" semantic of kill() (for example, to process groups) and
98       the  interaction  with  resource  allocation,  this  semantic  was  not
99       adopted.  The sigqueue() function queues a signal to a  single  process
100       specified by the pid argument.
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102       The  sigqueue()  function  can  fail  if  the  system  has insufficient
103       resources to queue the signal. An  explicit  limit  on  the  number  of
104       queued  signals  that  a  process could send was introduced.  While the
105       limit is "per-sender", this volume  of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001  does  not
106       specify  that  the  resources  be part of the state of the sender. This
107       would require either that the sender be maintained after exit until all
108       signals  that  it  had sent to other processes were handled or that all
109       such signals that had not yet been  acted  upon  be  removed  from  the
110       queue(s) of the receivers. This volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 does not
111       preclude this behavior, but an implementation  that  allocated  queuing
112       resources  from  a  system-wide  pool (with per-sender limits) and that
113       leaves queued signals pending after the sender exits is also permitted.
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FUTURE DIRECTIONS

116       None.
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SEE ALSO

119       Realtime Signals, the Base Definitions volume of  IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
120       <signal.h>
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123       Portions  of  this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
124       from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
125       --  Portable  Operating  System  Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
126       Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003  by  the  Institute  of
127       Electrical  and  Electronics  Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
128       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
129       The  Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
130       is the referee document. The original Standard can be  obtained  online
131       at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
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135IEEE/The Open Group                  2003                         SIGQUEUE(3P)
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