#include <signal.h>
#include <time.h>
int timer_create(clockid_t clockid, struct sigevent *sevp,
timer_t *timerid);
Link with -lrt.
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
timer_create(): _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 199309L
The clockid argument specifies the clock that the new timer uses to measure time. It can be specified as one of the following values:
As well as the above values, clockid can be specified as the clockid returned by a call to clock_getcpuclockid(3) or pthread_getcpuclockid(3).
The sevp argument points to a sigevent structure that specifies how the caller should be notified when the timer expires. For the definition and general details of this structure, see sigevent(7).
The sevp.sigev_notify field can have the following values:
Specifying sevp as NULL is equivalent to specifying a pointer to a sigevent structure in which sigev_notify is SIGEV_SIGNAL, sigev_signo is SIGALRM, and sigev_value.sival_int is the timer ID.
Timers are not inherited by the child of a fork(2), and are disarmed and deleted during an execve(2).
The kernel preallocates a "queued real-time signal" for each timer created using timer_create(). Consequently, the number of timers is limited by the RLIMIT_SIGPENDING resource limit (see setrlimit(2)).
The timers created by timer_create() are commonly known as "POSIX (interval) timers". The POSIX timers API consists of the following interfaces:
Since Linux 3.10, the /proc/[pid]/timers file can be used to list the POSIX timers for the process with PID pid. See proc(5) for further information.
The POSIX timers system calls first appeared in Linux 2.6. Prior to this, glibc provided an incomplete user-space implementation (CLOCK_REALTIME timers only) using POSIX threads, and current glibc falls back to this implementation on systems running pre-2.6 Linux kernels.
In the following example run, the program sleeps for 1 second, after creating a timer that has a frequency of 100 nanoseconds. By the time the signal is unblocked and delivered, there have been around ten million overruns.
$ ./a.out 1 100
Establishing handler for signal 34
Blocking signal 34
timer ID is 0x804c008
Sleeping for 1 seconds
Unblocking signal 34
Caught signal 34
sival_ptr = 0xbfb174f4; *sival_ptr = 0x804c008
overrun count = 10004886
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <time.h>
#define CLOCKID CLOCK_REALTIME
#define SIG SIGRTMIN
#define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \
} while (0)
static void
print_siginfo(siginfo_t *si)
{
timer_t *tidp;
int or;
tidp = si->si_value.sival_ptr;
printf(" sival_ptr = %p; ", si->si_value.sival_ptr);
printf(" *sival_ptr = 0x%lx\n", (long) *tidp);
or = timer_getoverrun(*tidp);
if (or == -1)
errExit("timer_getoverrun");
else
printf(" overrun count = %d\n", or);
}
static void
handler(int sig, siginfo_t *si, void *uc)
{
/* Note: calling printf() from a signal handler is not
strictly correct, since printf() is not async-signal-safe;
see signal(7) */
printf("Caught signal %d\n", sig);
print_siginfo(si);
signal(sig, SIG_IGN);
}
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
timer_t timerid;
struct sigevent sev;
struct itimerspec its;
long long freq_nanosecs;
sigset_t mask;
struct sigaction sa;
if (argc != 3) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <sleep-secs> <freq-nanosecs>\n",
argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Establish handler for timer signal */
printf("Establishing handler for signal %d\n", SIG);
sa.sa_flags = SA_SIGINFO;
sa.sa_sigaction = handler;
sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask);
if (sigaction(SIG, &sa, NULL) == -1)
errExit("sigaction");
/* Block timer signal temporarily */
printf("Blocking signal %d\n", SIG);
sigemptyset(&mask);
sigaddset(&mask, SIG);
if (sigprocmask(SIG_SETMASK, &mask, NULL) == -1)
errExit("sigprocmask");
/* Create the timer */
sev.sigev_notify = SIGEV_SIGNAL;
sev.sigev_signo = SIG;
sev.sigev_value.sival_ptr = &timerid;
if (timer_create(CLOCKID, &sev, &timerid) == -1)
errExit("timer_create");
printf("timer ID is 0x%lx\n", (long) timerid);
/* Start the timer */
freq_nanosecs = atoll(argv[2]);
its.it_value.tv_sec = freq_nanosecs / 1000000000;
its.it_value.tv_nsec = freq_nanosecs % 1000000000;
its.it_interval.tv_sec = its.it_value.tv_sec;
its.it_interval.tv_nsec = its.it_value.tv_nsec;
if (timer_settime(timerid, 0, &its, NULL) == -1)
errExit("timer_settime");
/* Sleep for a while; meanwhile, the timer may expire
multiple times */
printf("Sleeping for %d seconds\n", atoi(argv[1]));
sleep(atoi(argv[1]));
/* Unlock the timer signal, so that timer notification
can be delivered */
printf("Unblocking signal %d\n", SIG);
if (sigprocmask(SIG_UNBLOCK, &mask, NULL) == -1)
errExit("sigprocmask");
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}