Catching control-C

[Michael Mossey]

On Jul 6, 2:47 pm, Philip Semanchuk <phi... at semanchuk.com> wrote:
> On Jul 6, 2009, at 5:37 PM, Michael Mossey wrote:
>
> > What is required in a python program to make sure it catches a  
> > control-
> > c on the command-line? Do some i/o? The OS here is Linux.
>
> You can use a try/except to catch a KeyboardInterrupt exception, or  
> you can trap it using the signal module:http://docs.python.org/library/signal.html
>
> You want to trap SIGINT.
>
> HTH
> Philip

Thanks to both of you. However, my question is also about whether I
need to be doing i/o or some similar operation for my program to
notice in any shape or form that Control-C has been pressed. In the
past, I've written Python programs that go about their business
ignoring Ctrl-C. Other programs respond to it immediately by exiting.
I think the difference is that the latter programs are doing i/o. But
I want to understand better what the "secret" is to responding to a
ctrl-C in any shape or form.

For example, does trapping SIGINT always work, regardless of what my
process is doing?

Thanks,
Mike