ALARM(2) Linux Programmer's Manual ALARM(2)NAMEalarm - set an alarm clock for delivery of a signal
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
unsigned int alarm(unsigned int seconds);
DESCRIPTIONalarm() arranges for a SIGALRM signal to be delivered to the calling
process in seconds seconds.
If seconds is zero, any pending alarm is canceled.
In any event any previously set alarm() is canceled.
RETURN VALUEalarm() returns the number of seconds remaining until any previously
scheduled alarm was due to be delivered, or zero if there was no previ‐
ously scheduled alarm.
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
NOTESalarm() and setitimer(2) share the same timer; calls to one will inter‐
fere with use of the other.
Alarms created by alarm() are preserved across execve(2) and are not
inherited by children created via fork(2).
sleep(3) may be implemented using SIGALRM; mixing calls to alarm() and
sleep(3) is a bad idea.
Scheduling delays can, as ever, cause the execution of the process to
be delayed by an arbitrary amount of time.
SEE ALSOgettimeofday(2), pause(2), select(2), setitimer(2), sigaction(2), sig‐
nal(2), timer_create(2), timerfd_create(2), sleep(3), time(7)COLOPHON
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Linux 2017-05-03 ALARM(2)
