<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <link rel="STYLESHEET" href="lib.css" type='text/css' /> <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="../icons/pyfav.gif" /> <link rel='start' href='../index.html' title='Python Documentation Index' /> <link rel="first" href="lib.html" title='Python Library Reference' /> <link rel='contents' href='contents.html' title="Contents" /> <link rel='index' href='genindex.html' title='Index' /> <link rel='last' href='about.html' title='About this document...' /> <link rel='help' href='about.html' title='About this document...' /> <LINK rel="prev" href="module-signal.html"> <LINK rel="parent" href="module-signal.html"> <LINK rel="next" href="module-socket.html"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <meta name='aesop' content='information' /> <META name="description" content="Example"> <META name="keywords" content="lib"> <META name="resource-type" content="document"> <META name="distribution" content="global"> <title>7.1.1 Example</title> </head> <body> <DIV CLASS="navigation"> <div id='top-navigation-panel'> <table align="center" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="prev" title="7.1 signal " href="module-signal.html"><img src='../icons/previous.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Previous Page' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="parent" title="7.1 signal " href="module-signal.html"><img src='../icons/up.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Up One Level' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="next" title="7.2 socket " href="module-socket.html"><img src='../icons/next.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Next Page' width='32' /></A></td> <td align="center" width="100%">Python Library Reference</td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="contents" title="Table of Contents" href="contents.html"><img src='../icons/contents.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Contents' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a href="modindex.html" title="Module Index"><img src='../icons/modules.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Module Index' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="index" title="Index" href="genindex.html"><img src='../icons/index.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Index' width='32' /></A></td> </tr></table> <div class='online-navigation'> <b class="navlabel">Previous:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="prev" href="module-signal.html">7.1 signal </A> <b class="navlabel">Up:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="parent" href="module-signal.html">7.1 signal </A> <b class="navlabel">Next:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="next" href="module-socket.html">7.2 socket </A> </div> <hr /></div> </DIV> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> <H2><A NAME="SECTION009110000000000000000"> 7.1.1 Example</A> </H2> <A NAME="Signal_Example"><!--z--></A> <P> Here is a minimal example program. It uses the <tt class="function">alarm()</tt> function to limit the time spent waiting to open a file; this is useful if the file is for a serial device that may not be turned on, which would normally cause the <tt class="function">os.open()</tt> to hang indefinitely. The solution is to set a 5-second alarm before opening the file; if the operation takes too long, the alarm signal will be sent, and the handler raises an exception. <P> <div class="verbatim"><pre> import signal, os def handler(signum, frame): print 'Signal handler called with signal', signum raise IOError, "Couldn't open device!" # Set the signal handler and a 5-second alarm signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, handler) signal.alarm(5) # This open() may hang indefinitely fd = os.open('/dev/ttyS0', os.O_RDWR) signal.alarm(0) # Disable the alarm </pre></div> <DIV CLASS="navigation"> <div class='online-navigation'><hr /> <table align="center" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="prev" title="7.1 signal " rel="prev" title="7.1 signal " href="module-signal.html"><img src='../icons/previous.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Previous Page' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="parent" title="7.1 signal " rel="parent" title="7.1 signal " href="module-signal.html"><img src='../icons/up.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Up One Level' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="next" title="7.2 socket " rel="next" title="7.2 socket " href="module-socket.html"><img src='../icons/next.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Next Page' width='32' /></A></td> <td align="center" width="100%">Python Library Reference</td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="contents" title="Table of Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents" href="contents.html"><img src='../icons/contents.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Contents' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a href="modindex.html" title="Module Index"><img src='../icons/modules.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Module Index' width='32' /></a></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="index" title="Index" rel="index" title="Index" href="genindex.html"><img src='../icons/index.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Index' width='32' /></A></td> </tr></table> <div class='online-navigation'> <b class="navlabel">Previous:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="prev" href="module-signal.html">7.1 signal </A> <b class="navlabel">Up:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="parent" href="module-signal.html">7.1 signal </A> <b class="navlabel">Next:</b> <a class="sectref" rel="next" href="module-socket.html">7.2 socket </A> </div> </div> <hr /> <span class="release-info">Release 2.3.4, documentation updated on May 20, 2004.</span> </DIV> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> <ADDRESS> See <i><a href="about.html">About this document...</a></i> for information on suggesting changes. </ADDRESS> </BODY> </HTML>