PSIGNAL(3)

NAME
psignal, sys_siglist, sys_signame - system signal messages

SYNOPSIS
#include <signal.h>
void
psignal(int sig, const char *s);
extern char *sys_siglist[];
extern char *sys_signame[];

DESCRIPTION
The psignal() function locates the descriptive message string for the given signal number sig and writes it to the standard error.

If the argument s is not NULL it is written to the standard error file descriptor prior to the message string, immediately followed by a colon and a space. If the signal number is not recognized (see sigaction(2) for a list), the string “Unknown signal” is produced.

The message strings can be accessed directly using the external array sys_siglist, indexed by recognized signal numbers. The external array sys_signame is used similarly and contains short, upper-case abbreviations for signals which are useful for recognizing signal names in user input. The defined value NSIG contains a count of the strings in sys_siglist and sys_signame.

SEE ALSO
sigaction(2), perror(3), setlocale(3), strsignal(3)

HISTORY
The psignal() function appeared in 4.2BSD.

CAVEATS
On systems other than OpenBSD, the LC_MESSAGES locale(1) category can cause different strings to be printed instead of the normal signal descriptions; see CAVEATS in setlocale(3) for details.