Implement your own async-signal-safe snprintf("%d and use write
It is not as bad as I thought, How to convert an int to string in C? has several implementations.
The POSIX program below counts to stdout the number of times it received SIGINT so far, which you can trigger with Ctrl + C.
You can exit the program with Ctrl + \ (SIGQUIT).
main.c:
#define _XOPEN_SOURCE 700
#include <assert.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
/* Calculate the minimal buffer size for a given type.
*
* Here we overestimate and reserve 8 chars per byte.
*
* With this size we could even print a binary string.
*
* - +1 for NULL terminator
* - +1 for '-' sign
*
* A tight limit for base 10 can be found at:
* https://mcmap.net/q/56332/-how-can-i-convert-an-int-to-a-string-in-c/32871108#32871108
*
* TODO: get tight limits for all bases, possibly by looking into
* glibc's atoi: https://mcmap.net/q/55313/-where-is-the-itoa-function-in-linux/52127877#52127877
*/
#define ITOA_SAFE_STRLEN(type) sizeof(type) * CHAR_BIT + 2
/* async-signal-safe implementation of integer to string conversion.
*
* Null terminates the output string.
*
* The input buffer size must be large enough to contain the output,
* the caller must calculate it properly.
*
* @param[out] value Input integer value to convert.
* @param[out] result Buffer to output to.
* @param[in] base Base to convert to.
* @return Pointer to the end of the written string.
*/
char *itoa_safe(intmax_t value, char *result, int base) {
intmax_t tmp_value;
char *ptr, *ptr2, tmp_char;
if (base < 2 || base > 36) {
return NULL;
}
ptr = result;
do {
tmp_value = value;
value /= base;
*ptr++ = "ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA9876543210123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"[35 + (tmp_value - value * base)];
} while (value);
if (tmp_value < 0)
*ptr++ = '-';
ptr2 = result;
result = ptr;
*ptr-- = '\0';
while (ptr2 < ptr) {
tmp_char = *ptr;
*ptr--= *ptr2;
*ptr2++ = tmp_char;
}
return result;
}
volatile sig_atomic_t global = 0;
void signal_handler(int sig) {
char buf[ITOA_SAFE_STRLEN(sig_atomic_t)];
enum { base = 10 };
char *end;
end = itoa_safe(global, buf, base);
*end = '\n';
write(STDOUT_FILENO, buf, end - buf + 1);
global += 1;
signal(sig, signal_handler);
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
/* Unit test itoa_safe. */
{
typedef struct {
intmax_t n;
int base;
char out[1024];
} InOut;
char result[1024];
size_t i;
InOut io;
InOut ios[] = {
/* Base 10. */
{0, 10, "0"},
{1, 10, "1"},
{9, 10, "9"},
{10, 10, "10"},
{100, 10, "100"},
{-1, 10, "-1"},
{-9, 10, "-9"},
{-10, 10, "-10"},
{-100, 10, "-100"},
/* Base 2. */
{0, 2, "0"},
{1, 2, "1"},
{10, 2, "1010"},
{100, 2, "1100100"},
{-1, 2, "-1"},
{-100, 2, "-1100100"},
/* Base 35. */
{0, 35, "0"},
{1, 35, "1"},
{34, 35, "Y"},
{35, 35, "10"},
{100, 35, "2U"},
{-1, 35, "-1"},
{-34, 35, "-Y"},
{-35, 35, "-10"},
{-100, 35, "-2U"},
};
for (i = 0; i < sizeof(ios)/sizeof(ios[0]); ++i) {
io = ios[i];
itoa_safe(io.n, result, io.base);
if (strcmp(result, io.out)) {
printf("%ju %d %s\n", io.n, io.base, io.out);
assert(0);
}
}
}
/* Handle the signals. */
if (argc > 1 && !strcmp(argv[1], "1")) {
signal(SIGINT, signal_handler);
while(1);
}
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
Compile and run:
gcc -std=c99 -Wall -Wextra -o main main.c
./main 1
After pressing Ctrl + C fifteen times, the terminal shows:
^C0
^C1
^C2
^C3
^C4
^C5
^C6
^C7
^C8
^C9
^C10
^C11
^C12
^C13
^C14
Here is a related program that creates a more complex format string: How to avoid using printf in a signal handler?
Tested on Ubuntu 18.04. GitHub upstream.
signalfdand slot that into your event loop. Then you can do anything you like in response to the signal. – Hannoversignalfdis not portable; it's Linux-specific. However, there's been a portable version of the same thing for pretty much the entire history of unix: the self-pipe trick. – Polycrates