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Bash Signal Handling

Signal handling is a crucial aspect of Bash scripting that allows you to manage and respond to various system signals. These signals are used for inter-process communication and can significantly impact the behavior of your scripts.

What are Signals?

Signals are software interrupts sent to a program to indicate that an important event has occurred. The events can vary from user requests to exceptional runtime occurrences. Some common signals include:

  • SIGINT (2): Interrupt from keyboard (Ctrl+C)
  • SIGTERM (15): Termination signal
  • SIGKILL (9): Kill signal (cannot be caught or ignored)
  • SIGHUP (1): Hangup detected on controlling terminal

Handling Signals in Bash

Bash provides the trap command to handle signals. The basic syntax is:

trap 'commands' SIGNALS

Here, 'commands' is the code to execute when the specified SIGNALS are received.

Example: Handling SIGINT

#!/bin/bash

trap 'echo "Ctrl+C pressed. Exiting..."; exit 1' SIGINT

echo "This script will run until you press Ctrl+C"
while true; do
    sleep 1
done

In this example, the script will continue running until the user presses Ctrl+C, at which point it will display a message and exit gracefully.

Ignoring Signals

You can also use trap to ignore specific signals:

trap '' SIGINT

This will cause the script to ignore the SIGINT signal (Ctrl+C).

Resetting Signal Handlers

To reset a signal handler to its default behavior, use:

trap - SIGNAL

Best Practices

  • Always handle SIGINT and SIGTERM to ensure graceful script termination.
  • Use signal handling for cleanup operations, such as removing temporary files.
  • Be cautious when ignoring signals, as it may lead to unexpected behavior.
  • Remember that SIGKILL cannot be caught or ignored.

Related Concepts

To further enhance your Bash scripting skills, consider exploring these related topics:

By mastering signal handling, you'll be able to create more robust and responsive Bash scripts that can gracefully handle various system events and user interactions.