How does sig_atomic_t actually work?

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sig_atomic_t is not an atomic data type. It is just the data type that you are allowed to use in the context of a signal handler, that is all. So better read the name as “atomic relative to signal handling”.

To guarantee communication with and from a signal handler, only one of the properties of atomic data types is needed, namely the fact that read and update will always see a consistent value. Other data types (such as perhaps long long) could be written with several assembler instructions for the lower and higher part, e.g. sig_atomic_t is guaranteed to be read and written in one go.

So a platform may choose any integer base type as sig_atomic_t for which it can make the guarantee that volatile sig_atomic_t can be safely used in signal handlers. Many platforms chose int for this, because they know that for them int is written with a single instruction.

The latest C standard, C11, has atomic types, but which are a completely different thing. Some of them (those that are “lockfree”) may also be used in signal handlers, but that again is a completely different story.

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