Help using the signal module, please?

[Tim Peters]

[Sheila King]
> OK, I'm not sure why this isn't working. I've copied exactly from
> the example in the 2.0 documentation, here:
> http://www.python.org/doc/2.0/lib/Signal_Example.html
>
> At the top of my script I have:
>
> import signal
> ...

And let's skip to the clue:

> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File
> "E:\Python\Python20\Pythonwin\pywin\framework\scriptutils.py", line 301,
> in RunScript
>     exec codeObject in __main__.__dict__
>   File "E:\Python\Python20\testprograms\Boggle.py", line 64, in ?
>     signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, timesUp)
> AttributeError: SIGALRM

You're clearly running on Windows.  Signals are a Unix thing, and Windows
supports only the bare minimum signal facilities required by the C standard
(which amounts to nothing useful).  Even across Unix flavors, as the Python
docs say:

    Note that not all systems define the same set of signal
    names; only those names defined by the system are defined
    by this module.

Sorry!  If you want to play with signals, you'd better bring up Linux
instead.