UALARM(3) Linux Programmer's Manual UALARM(3)

NAME
       ualarm - schedule signal after given number of microseconds

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       usecondst ualarm(usecondst usecs, usecondst interval);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see featuretestmacros(7)):

       ualarm():
           Since glibc 2.12:
               BSDSOURCE ||
                   (XOPENSOURCE >= 500 ||
                       XOPENSOURCE && XOPENSOURCEEXTENDED) &&
                   !(POSIXCSOURCE >= 200809L || XOPENSOURCE >= 700)
           Before glibc 2.12:
               BSDSOURCE || XOPENSOURCE >= 500 ||
               XOPENSOURCE && XOPENSOURCEEXTENDED

DESCRIPTION
       The ualarm() function causes the signal  SIGALRM  to  be  sent  to  the
       invoking  process  after (not less than) usecs microseconds.  The delay
       may be lengthened slightly by any system activity or by the time  spent
       processing the call or by the granularity of system timers.

       Unless  caught  or  ignored,  the  SIGALRM  signal  will  terminate the
       process.

       If the interval argument is nonzero, further SIGALRM  signals  will  be
       sent every interval microseconds after the first.

RETURN VALUE
       This  function  returns  the  number  of microseconds remaining for any
       alarm that was previously set, or 0 if no alarm was pending.

ERRORS
       EINTR  Interrupted by a signal.

       EINVAL usecs or interval is not  smaller  than  1000000.   (On  systems
              where that is considered an error.)

ATTRIBUTES
       For   an   explanation   of   the  terms  used  in  this  section,  see
       attributes(7).

       ┌──────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐
       │Interface │ Attribute     │ Value   │
       ├──────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤
       │ualarm()  │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │
       └──────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘
CONFORMING TO
       4.3BSD,  POSIX.1-2001.   POSIX.1-2001  marks  ualarm()   as   obsolete.
       POSIX.1-2008 removes the specification of ualarm().  4.3BSD, SUSv2, and
       POSIX do not define any errors.

NOTES
       POSIX.1-2001 does not specify what happens if the usecs argument is  0.
       On Linux (and probably most other systems), the effect is to cancel any
       pending alarm.

       The type usecondst is an unsigned  integer  type  capable  of  holding
       integers in the range [0,1000000].  On the original BSD implementation,
       and in glibc before version 2.1, the arguments to ualarm() were instead
       typed  as  unsigned  int.  Programs will be more portable if they never
       mention usecondst explicitly.

       The interaction of this function with other  timer  functions  such  as
       alarm(2),   sleep(3),   nanosleep(2),   setitimer(2),  timercreate(2),
       timerdelete(2),  timergetoverrun(2),   timergettime(2),   timerset‐
       time(2), usleep(3) is unspecified.

       This  function  is obsolete.  Use setitimer(2) or POSIX interval timers
       (timercreate(2), etc.)  instead.

SEE ALSO
       alarm(2),   getitimer(2),   nanosleep(2),   select(2),    setitimer(2),
       usleep(3), time(7)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.53 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



                                  2013-04-18                         UALARM(3)