Catching signals: Use a member function as signal handler

Question

I have an object which does some work in an endless loop. The main() instantiates the object and calls the run() method. Since I don't want to use threads, I need a solution to make my object stop running. Below you see what I've come up with.

struct Foo
{
    void run()
    {
        running = 1;
        while (running) 
            do_something_useful();

        std::cout << "Execution stopped." << std::endl;
    }

    bool running;

    void catch_signal(int signal)
    {
        std::cout << "Caught signal " << signal << std::endl;
        if( signal == SIGTERM ) 
            running = false;
    }

};

As you see, I need to send a signal asynchronously. Therefore, I use a signal handler and sigaction. Below the main I can imagine to use.

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    Foo foo;
    struct sigaction sigIntHandler;

    boost::function< void (int) > f;
    f = std::bind1st(
      std::mem_fun(&Foo::catch_signal), &foo);
    f(5);  // this call works

    sigIntHandler.sa_handler = f;           // compiler complains, "cannot assign ..."
    sigemptyset(&sigIntHandler.sa_mask);
    sigIntHandler.sa_flags = 0;
    sigaction(SIGTERM, &sigIntHandler, NULL);
    s.run();

}

What I would expect now: The program runs until I send SIGTERM which is caught and will cause my object to stop iteration and return to main.

I have two questions now:

(a) In the code you see a line marked with "Compiler complains", the message is like

boost::function<void(int)> cannot be converted to __sighandler_t {aka void (*)(int)}

What do I need to change to make this work? I think f is like void f(int), like the functions the signal handler gets in some examples.

(b) For those of you who wonder "what is that guy doing?": Do you have any advice how to solve this kind of thing better?

Answer 1

• What do I need to change to make this work? I think f is like void f(int), like the functions the signal handler gets in some examples.

The compiler complains about the type, therefore you need to pass a function pointer, not an object of type boost::function<void(int)>. Creating a global variable of this type, and adding a function which calls this object would work :

boost::function<void(int)> myCb;
void CallCb( int value )
{
  myCb(value);
}

int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
    Foo foo;
    struct sigaction sigIntHandler;

    myCb = std::bind1st(
      std::mem_fun(&Foo::catch_signal), &foo);
    f(5);  // this call works

    sigIntHandler.sa_handler = CallCb;
    sigemptyset(&sigIntHandler.sa_mask);
    sigIntHandler.sa_flags = 0;
    sigaction(SIGTERM, &sigIntHandler, NULL);
    s.run();

}

• Do you have any advice how to solve this kind of thing better?

Not really. The idea is ok. I would just just c++11 lambda instead