[Tutor] "standard output: Broken pipe"

[Alan Gauld]

"Michael Langford" <mlangford.cs03 at gtalumni.org> wrote 

>I think Alan is exaggerating the danger of signal handlers. 

Indeed, thats why I sent the follow up.

They aren't *dangerous* but they can be inconsistent across 
OS. Plus some signals are wider in scope that the curent 
process (eg ISTR Stop-A on a Sun can be broadcast to all 
processes dependant on kernel settings) Also if a process 
is run under the cotrol of a parent process interfering with 
how that parent process deals with signals can result in 
inconsistent behaviour.

So the signals and signal handling mechanism per se is 
not dangerous, simply that using them can create 
"strangeness" in a system which can be a devil 
to debug.

Hopefully my other email clarified what I meant...

Alan G