How do I trap $SIG{INT} ( sigint aka Ctrl^c )?

[crazyinsomniac]

I've got a commandline script, and I wanted to do some stuff before ending the program if somebody hit Ctrl^C.

I'm using ActivePerl and I've tried:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

$SIG{INT}=\&myhand;

sub myhand
{
    print "\n caught $SIG{INT}",@_,"\n";
}

print "program started \n";
while(1){sleep 1;}

I need to hit Ctrl^c twice to kill the program.
If I add exit; or die; at the end of myhand, perl crashes (PERL caused an exception c0000026H in module KERNEL32.DLL at 015f:bff88510.).

How do I fix this?
I've read perlman:lib:sigtrap and I've also tried:

use sigtrap 'handler' => \&myhand, 'INT';

sub myhand
{
    print "\n caught $SIG{INT}",@_,"\n";
}

print "program started \n";
while(1){sleep 1;}

which should be the same as my first example, but it also doesn't work (same errors as before).

Originally posted as a Categorized Question.

[crazyinsomniac]

Basically you need to kill yourself (the process).

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use sigtrap 'handler' => \&myhand, 'INT';
# equivalent to $SIG{INT}=\&myhand;

# use strict;
# kill 6 doesn't work under strict under IndigoPerl for some reason

sub myhand
{
    print "\n caught $SIG{INT}",@_,"\n";
    kill 6, $$; # ABRT = 6
    # $$ is the pid of the current process
}

print "program started \n";

while(1)
{ select(undef,undef,undef,0.25);}

Also check out perlvar(for $$), perlipc and How do I trap control characters/signals?.
kill 6 is the equivalent of kill ABRT (thanks Vynce).

[Anonymous Monk]

Instead of killing yourself, as suggested by crazyinsomniac, you could also try just exiting. This avoids the shell's response of 'aborted' when the program is killed. I.e.:

sub myhand
{
  print "\n caught $SIG{INT}",@_,"\n";
  exit(0);
}

-Josh O-

[thayer]

Well, exit or die would work under unix, so switch to Linux and your life will be much better ;^)

However, if that's not an option, then any OS will let you do something like:

  $Done = 0;
  sub myhand { print "Caught SIGINT\n"; $Done = 1; }

  ...
  while(1) { 
    sleep(1); 
    $Done && die "Time to go";
  }
  ...

I'd also like to warn you that if you use system, or sleep you're signal handlers may get reset for INT and ALRM respectively, so what's in the run loop may contribute to your woes... I'm not sure what Windows side-effects to look for...

/charles

[LH2007]

How to terminate a childprocess by press Ctrl_c: Creat 2 process,P1(parent),P2(child).P1 gets characters from keyboard.If press Ctrl-C,P1 will send a signal to terminate P2.... I think,I can use a subroutine to response to Ctrl-C combination: code$SIG{INT} = \&killproc; sub tsktsk { $SIG{INT} = \&killproc; ............ } /code Please help me.Thanks

Originally posted as a Categorized Answer.