Practical usage of setjmp and longjmp in C

Question

Error handling
Suppose there is an error deep down in a function nested in many other functions and error handling makes sense only in the top level function.

It would be very tedious and awkward if all the functions in between had to return normally and evaluate return values or a global error variable to determine that further processing doesn't make sense or even would be bad.

That's a situation where setjmp/longjmp makes sense. Those situations are similar to situation where exception in other langages (C++, Java) make sense.

Coroutines
Besides error handling, I can think also of another situation where you need setjmp/longjmp in C:

It is the case when you need to implement coroutines.

Here is a little demo example. I hope it satisfies the request from Sivaprasad Palas for some example code and answers the question of TheBlastOne how setjmp/longjmp supports the implementation of corroutines (as much as I see it doesn't base on any non-standard or new behaviour).

EDIT:
It could be that it actually is undefined behaviour to do a longjmp down the callstack (see comment of MikeMB; though I have not yet had opportunity to verify that).

#include <stdio.h>
#include <setjmp.h>

jmp_buf bufferA, bufferB;

void routineB(); // forward declaration 

void routineA()
{
    int r ;

    printf("(A1)\n");

    r = setjmp(bufferA);
    if (r == 0) routineB();

    printf("(A2) r=%d\n",r);

    r = setjmp(bufferA);
    if (r == 0) longjmp(bufferB, 20001);

    printf("(A3) r=%d\n",r);

    r = setjmp(bufferA);
    if (r == 0) longjmp(bufferB, 20002);

    printf("(A4) r=%d\n",r);
}

void routineB()
{
    int r;

    printf("(B1)\n");

    r = setjmp(bufferB);
    if (r == 0) longjmp(bufferA, 10001);

    printf("(B2) r=%d\n", r);

    r = setjmp(bufferB);
    if (r == 0) longjmp(bufferA, 10002);

    printf("(B3) r=%d\n", r);

    r = setjmp(bufferB);
    if (r == 0) longjmp(bufferA, 10003);
}


int main(int argc, char **argv) 
{
    routineA();
    return 0;
}

Following figure shows the flow of execution:

Warning note
When using setjmp/longjmp be aware that they have an effect on the validity of local variables often not considered.
Cf. my question about this topic.

The theory is that you can use them for error handling so that you can jump out of deeply nested call chain without needing to deal with handling errors in every function in the chain.

Like every clever theory this falls apart when meeting reality. Your intermediate functions will allocate memory, grab locks, open files and do all kinds of different things that require cleanup. So in practice setjmp/longjmp are usually a bad idea except in very limited circumstances where you have total control over your environment (some embedded platforms).

In my experience in most cases whenever you think that using setjmp/longjmp would work, your program is clear and simple enough that every intermediate function call in the call chain can do error handling, or it's so messy and impossible to fix that you should do exit when you encounter the error.

The combination of setjmp and longjmp is "super strength goto". Use with EXTREME care. However, as others have explained, a longjmp is very useful to get out of a nasty error situation, when you want to get me back to the beginning quickly, rather than having to trickle back an error message for 18 layers of functions.

However, just like goto, but worse, you have to be REALLY careful how you use this. A longjmp will just get you back to the beginning of the code. It won't affect all the other states that may have changed between the setjmp and getting back to where setjmp started. So allocations, locks, half-initialized data structures, etc, are still allocated, locked and half-initialized when you get back to where setjmp was called. This means, you have to really care for the places where you do this, that it's REALLY ok to call longjmp without causing MORE problems. Of course, if the next thing you do is "reboot" [after storing a message about the error, perhaps] - in an embedded system where you've discovered that the hardware is in a bad state, for example, then fine.

I have also seen setjmp/longjmp used to provide very basic threading mechanisms. But that's pretty special case - and definitely not how "standard" threads work.

Edit: One could of course add code to "deal with cleaning up", in the same way that C++ stores the exception points in the compiled code and then knows what gave an exception and what needs cleaning up. This would involve some sort of function pointer table and storing away "if we jump out from below here, call this function, with this argument". Something like this:

struct 
{
    void (*destructor)(void *ptr);
};


void LockForceUnlock(void *vlock)
{
   LOCK* lock = vlock;
}


LOCK func_lock;


void func()
{
   ref = add_destructor(LockForceUnlock, mylock);
   Lock(func_lock)
   ... 
   func2();   // May call longjmp. 

   Unlock(func_lock);
   remove_destructor(ref);
}

With this system, you could do "complete exception handling like C++". But it's quite messy, and relies on the code being well written.

setjmp and longjmp can be very useful in unit testing.

Suppose we want to test the following module:

#include <stdlib.h>

int my_div(int x, int y)
{
    if (y==0) exit(2);
    return x/y;
}

Normally, if the function to test calls another function, you can declare a stub function for it to call that will mimic what the actual function does to test certain flows. In this case however, the function calls exit which does not return. The stub needs to somehow emulate this behavior. setjmp and longjmp can do that for you.

To test this function, we can create the following test program:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <setjmp.h>

// redefine assert to set a boolean flag
#ifdef assert
#undef assert
#endif
#define assert(x) (rslt = rslt && (x))

// the function to test
int my_div(int x, int y);

// main result return code used by redefined assert
static int rslt;

// variables controling stub functions
static int expected_code;
static int should_exit;
static jmp_buf jump_env;

// test suite main variables
static int done;
static int num_tests;
static int tests_passed;

//  utility function
void TestStart(char *name)
{
    num_tests++;
    rslt = 1;
    printf("-- Testing %s ... ",name);
}

//  utility function
void TestEnd()
{
    if (rslt) tests_passed++;
    printf("%s\n", rslt ? "success" : "fail");
}

// stub function
void exit(int code)
{
    if (!done)
    {
        assert(should_exit==1);
        assert(expected_code==code);
        longjmp(jump_env, 1);
    }
    else
    {
        _exit(code);
    }
}

// test case
void test_normal()
{
    int jmp_rval;
    int r;

    TestStart("test_normal");
    should_exit = 0;
    if (!(jmp_rval=setjmp(jump_env)))
    {
        r = my_div(12,3);
    }

    assert(jmp_rval==0);
    assert(r==4);
    TestEnd();
}

// test case
void test_div0()
{
    int jmp_rval;
    int r;

    TestStart("test_div0");
    should_exit = 1;
    expected_code = 2;
    if (!(jmp_rval=setjmp(jump_env)))
    {
        r = my_div(2,0);
    }

    assert(jmp_rval==1);
    TestEnd();
}

int main()
{
    num_tests = 0;
    tests_passed = 0;
    done = 0;
    test_normal();
    test_div0();
    printf("Total tests passed: %d\n", tests_passed);
    done = 1;
    return !(tests_passed == num_tests);
}

In this example, you use setjmp before entering the function to test, then in the stubbed exit you call longjmp to return directly back to your test case.

Also note that the redefined exit has a special variable that it checks to see if you actually want to exit the program and calls _exit to do so. If you don't do this, your test program may not quit cleanly.

Since you mention embedded, I think it's worth noting a non-use case: when your coding standard prohibit it. For instance MISRA (MISRA-C:2004:Rule 20.7) and JFS (AV Rule 20) : "The setjmp macro and the longjmp function shall not be used."

I've written a Java-like exception handling mechanism in C using setjmp(), longjmp() and system functions. It catches custom exceptions but also signals like SIGSEGV. It features infinite nesting of exception handling blocks, which works accross function calls, and supports the two most common threading implementations. It allows you to define a tree hierarchy of exception classes that feature link-time inheritance, and the catch statement walks this tree to see if it needs to catch or pass on.

Here's a sample of how code looks using this:

try
{
    *((int *)0) = 0;    /* may not be portable */
}
catch (SegmentationFault, e)
{
    long f[] = { 'i', 'l', 'l', 'e', 'g', 'a', 'l' };
    ((void(*)())f)();   /* may not be portable */
}
finally
{
    return(1 / strcmp("", ""));
}

And here's part of the include file that contains a lot of logic:

#ifndef _EXCEPT_H
#define _EXCEPT_H

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <setjmp.h>
#include "Lifo.h"
#include "List.h"

#define SETJMP(env)             sigsetjmp(env, 1)
#define LONGJMP(env, val)       siglongjmp(env, val)
#define JMP_BUF                 sigjmp_buf

typedef void (* Handler)(int);

typedef struct _Class *ClassRef;        /* exception class reference */
struct _Class
{
    int         notRethrown;            /* always 1 (used by throw()) */
    ClassRef    parent;                 /* parent class */
    char *      name;                   /* this class name string */
    int         signalNumber;           /* optional signal number */
};

typedef struct _Class Class[1];         /* exception class */

typedef enum _Scope                     /* exception handling scope */
{
    OUTSIDE = -1,                       /* outside any 'try' */
    INTERNAL,                           /* exception handling internal */
    TRY,                                /* in 'try' (across routine calls) */
    CATCH,                              /* in 'catch' (idem.) */
    FINALLY                             /* in 'finally' (idem.) */
} Scope;

typedef enum _State                     /* exception handling state */
{
    EMPTY,                              /* no exception occurred */
    PENDING,                            /* exception occurred but not caught */
    CAUGHT                              /* occurred exception caught */
} State;

typedef struct _Except                  /* exception handle */
{
    int         notRethrown;            /* always 0 (used by throw()) */
    State       state;                  /* current state of this handle */
    JMP_BUF     throwBuf;               /* start-'catching' destination */
    JMP_BUF     finalBuf;               /* perform-'finally' destination */
    ClassRef    class;                  /* occurred exception class */
    void *      pData;                  /* exception associated (user) data */
    char *      file;                   /* exception file name */
    int         line;                   /* exception line number */
    int         ready;                  /* macro code control flow flag */
    Scope       scope;                  /* exception handling scope */
    int         first;                  /* flag if first try in function */
    List *      checkList;              /* list used by 'catch' checking */
    char*       tryFile;                /* source file name of 'try' */
    int         tryLine;                /* source line number of 'try' */

    ClassRef    (*getClass)(void);      /* method returning class reference */
    char *      (*getMessage)(void);    /* method getting description */
    void *      (*getData)(void);       /* method getting application data */
    void        (*printTryTrace)(FILE*);/* method printing nested trace */
} Except;

typedef struct _Context                 /* exception context per thread */
{
    Except *    pEx;                    /* current exception handle */
    Lifo *      exStack;                /* exception handle stack */
    char        message[1024];          /* used by ExceptGetMessage() */
    Handler     sigAbrtHandler;         /* default SIGABRT handler */
    Handler     sigFpeHandler;          /* default SIGFPE handler */
    Handler     sigIllHandler;          /* default SIGILL handler */
    Handler     sigSegvHandler;         /* default SIGSEGV handler */
    Handler     sigBusHandler;          /* default SIGBUS handler */
} Context;

extern Context *        pC;
extern Class            Throwable;

#define except_class_declare(child, parent) extern Class child
#define except_class_define(child, parent)  Class child = { 1, parent, #child }

except_class_declare(Exception,           Throwable);
except_class_declare(OutOfMemoryError,    Exception);
except_class_declare(FailedAssertion,     Exception);
except_class_declare(RuntimeException,    Exception);
except_class_declare(AbnormalTermination, RuntimeException);  /* SIGABRT */
except_class_declare(ArithmeticException, RuntimeException);  /* SIGFPE */
except_class_declare(IllegalInstruction,  RuntimeException);  /* SIGILL */
except_class_declare(SegmentationFault,   RuntimeException);  /* SIGSEGV */
except_class_declare(BusError,            RuntimeException);  /* SIGBUS */


#ifdef  DEBUG

#define CHECKED                                                         \
        static int checked

#define CHECK_BEGIN(pC, pChecked, file, line)                           \
            ExceptCheckBegin(pC, pChecked, file, line)

#define CHECK(pC, pChecked, class, file, line)                          \
                 ExceptCheck(pC, pChecked, class, file, line)

#define CHECK_END                                                       \
            !checked

#else   /* DEBUG */

#define CHECKED
#define CHECK_BEGIN(pC, pChecked, file, line)           1
#define CHECK(pC, pChecked, class, file, line)          1
#define CHECK_END                                       0

#endif  /* DEBUG */


#define except_thread_cleanup(id)       ExceptThreadCleanup(id)

#define try                                                             \
    ExceptTry(pC, __FILE__, __LINE__);                                  \
    while (1)                                                           \
    {                                                                   \
        Context *       pTmpC = ExceptGetContext(pC);                   \
        Context *       pC = pTmpC;                                     \
        CHECKED;                                                        \
                                                                        \
        if (CHECK_BEGIN(pC, &checked, __FILE__, __LINE__) &&            \
            pC->pEx->ready && SETJMP(pC->pEx->throwBuf) == 0)           \
        {                                                               \
            pC->pEx->scope = TRY;                                       \
            do                                                          \
            {

#define catch(class, e)                                                 \
            }                                                           \
            while (0);                                                  \
        }                                                               \
        else if (CHECK(pC, &checked, class, __FILE__, __LINE__) &&      \
                 pC->pEx->ready && ExceptCatch(pC, class))              \
        {                                                               \
            Except *e = LifoPeek(pC->exStack, 1);                       \
            pC->pEx->scope = CATCH;                                     \
            do                                                          \
            {

#define finally                                                         \
            }                                                           \
            while (0);                                                  \
        }                                                               \
        if (CHECK_END)                                                  \
            continue;                                                   \
        if (!pC->pEx->ready && SETJMP(pC->pEx->finalBuf) == 0)          \
            pC->pEx->ready = 1;                                         \
        else                                                            \
            break;                                                      \
    }                                                                   \
    ExceptGetContext(pC)->pEx->scope = FINALLY;                         \
    while (ExceptGetContext(pC)->pEx->ready > 0 || ExceptFinally(pC))   \
        while (ExceptGetContext(pC)->pEx->ready-- > 0)

#define throw(pExceptOrClass, pData)                                    \
    ExceptThrow(pC, (ClassRef)pExceptOrClass, pData, __FILE__, __LINE__)

#define return(x)                                                       \
    {                                                                   \
        if (ExceptGetScope(pC) != OUTSIDE)                              \
        {                                                               \
            void *      pData = malloc(sizeof(JMP_BUF));                \
            ExceptGetContext(pC)->pEx->pData = pData;                   \
            if (SETJMP(*(JMP_BUF *)pData) == 0)                         \
                ExceptReturn(pC);                                       \
            else                                                        \
                free(pData);                                            \
        }                                                               \
        return x;                                                       \
    }

#define pending                                                         \
    (ExceptGetContext(pC)->pEx->state == PENDING)

extern Scope    ExceptGetScope(Context *pC);
extern Context *ExceptGetContext(Context *pC);
extern void     ExceptThreadCleanup(int threadId);
extern void     ExceptTry(Context *pC, char *file, int line);
extern void     ExceptThrow(Context *pC, void * pExceptOrClass,
                            void *pData, char *file, int line);
extern int      ExceptCatch(Context *pC, ClassRef class);
extern int      ExceptFinally(Context *pC);
extern void     ExceptReturn(Context *pC);
extern int      ExceptCheckBegin(Context *pC, int *pChecked,
                                 char *file, int line);
extern int      ExceptCheck(Context *pC, int *pChecked, ClassRef class,
                            char *file, int line);


#endif  /* _EXCEPT_H */

There's also a C module that contains the logic for signal handling and some bookkeeping.

It was extremely tricky to implement I can tell you and I almost quit. I really pushed to make it as close to Java as possible; I found it surprising how far I got with just C.

Give me a shout if you're interested.