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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON


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

NAME         top

       ualarm - schedule signal after given number of microseconds

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <unistd.h>

       useconds_t ualarm(useconds_t usecs, useconds_t interval);

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

       ualarm(): _BSD_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500

DESCRIPTION         top

       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 non-zero, further SIGALRM signals will be sent
       every interval microseconds after the first.

RETURN VALUE         top

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

ERRORS         top

       EINTR  Interrupted by a signal.

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

CONFORMING TO         top

       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         top

       The type useconds_t 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 useconds_t
       explicitly.

       The interaction of this function with other timer functions such as alarm(2),
       sleep(3), nanosleep(2), setitimer(2), timer_create(2), timer_delete(2),
       timer_getoverrun(2), timer_gettime(2), timer_settime(2), usleep(3) is
       unspecified.

       This function is obsolete.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

SEE ALSO         top

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

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.23 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/.

                                      2008-08-06                            UALARM(3)