4.3BSD-UWisc/man/cat3/alarm.3c

ALARM(3C)           UNIX Programmer's Manual            ALARM(3C)



NAME
     alarm - schedule signal after specified time

SYNOPSIS
     alarm(seconds)
     unsigned seconds;

DESCRIPTION
     This interface is made obsolete by setitimer(2).

     _A_l_a_r_m causes signal SIGALRM, see _s_i_g_v_e_c(2), to be sent to
     the invoking process in a number of seconds given by the
     argument.  Unless caught or ignored, the signal terminates
     the process.

     Alarm requests are not stacked; successive calls reset the
     alarm clock.  If the argument is 0, any alarm request is
     canceled.  Because of scheduling delays, resumption of exe-
     cution of when the signal is caught may be delayed an arbi-
     trary amount.  The longest specifiable delay time is
     2147483647 seconds.

     The return value is the amount of time previously remaining
     in the alarm clock.

SEE ALSO
     sigpause(2), sigvec(2), signal(3C), sleep(3), ualarm(3),
     usleep(3)



























Printed 12/27/86          May 27, 1986                          1