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Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:20:04 -0800 (PST)
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From: Mike Pritchard <mpp>
Subject: Re: docs/3047 & cvs commit: src/lib/libc/sys sigaction.2
Reply-To: Mike Pritchard <mpp>
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The following reply was made to PR docs/3047; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Mike Pritchard <mpp>
To: fenner@parc.xerox.com (Bill Fenner)
Cc: CVS-committers@freefall.freebsd.org, cvs-all@freefall.freebsd.org,
        cvs-lib@freefall.freebsd.org, freebsd-gnats-submit@freebsd.org,
        fenner@parc.xerox.com
Subject: Re: docs/3047 & cvs commit: src/lib/libc/sys sigaction.2
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:15:58 -0800 (PST)

 I see where I got confused.  I looked at the code to sigaction,
 saw that it would return EINVAL if the signal nuber passed in tried
 to block these signals., but the statement in question refers
 to the mask, not the signal number.  I'll go fix this and then go 
 dig out my pointy hat :-).
 
 Bill Fenner wrote:
 > 
 > > Change the description of how attempts to block SIGKILL and SIGSTOP
 > > are handled.  The system call will actually fail in this case - the
 > > system doesn't silently ignore the request.  Closes PR# 3047
 > 
 > Um, if this is what you took from my wording then I did an even poorer
 > job than the man page did.
 > 
 > All I meant was that the antecedent of "This" in the second sentence
 > of
 > 
 > NOTE
 >      The mask specified in act is not allowed to block SIGKILL or SIGSTOP.
 >      This is done silently by the system.
 > 
 > is potentially unclear.  The first time I read this man page I thought
 > the antecedent was "block SIGKILL [and] SIGSTOP", e.g. "the system
 > silently blocks SIGKILL [and] SIGSTOP".  The real meaning (and an
 > alternative reading of the same sentence) is "the system silently
 > ignores attempts to block SIGKILL or SIGSTOP"; I just wanted to make
 > that sentence less ambiguous.
 > 
 > Attempting to block SIGKILL and SIGSTOP is not an error and is silently
 > ignored by the system.  Everything else that the system call is
 > attempting to do succeeds.  (At least, this is what POSIX says, and
 > this is what 2.2 does).
 > 
 > (While writing my test program to make absolutely sure, I noticed that the
 > first line should probably read "The mask specified in the sa_mask field"
 > or something similar, too...)
 > 
 >   Bill
 > 
 
 
 -- 
 Mike Pritchard
 mpp@FreeBSD.org
 "Go that way.  Really fast.  If something gets in your way, turn"