Package

perl-sys-sigaction

Description

Prior to version 5.8.0 perl implemented 'unsafe' signal handling. The
reason it is consider unsafe, is that there is a risk that a signal will
arrive, and be handled while perl is changing internal data structures.
This can result in all kinds of subtle and not so subtle problems. For
this reason it has always been recommended that one do as little as
possible in a signal handler, and only variables that already exist be
manipulated. Perl 5.8.0 and later versions implements 'safe' signal
handling on platforms which support the POSIX sigaction() function. This
is accomplished by having perl note that a signal has arrived, but
deferring the execution of the signal handler until such time as it is
safe to do so. Unfortunately these changes can break some existing
scripts, if they depended on a system routine being interrupted by the
signal's arrival. The perl 5.8.0 implementation was modified further in
version 5.8.2

Note