KILL

Section: Linux Programmer's Manual (2)
Updated: 23 July 1993
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

kill - send signal to a process  

SYNOPSIS

#include <signal.h>

int kill(pid_t pid, int sig);
 

DESCRIPTION

kill() can be used to send any signal to any process group or process.

If pid is positive, then signal sig is sent to pid. In this case, 0 is returned on success, or a negative value on error.

If pid equals -1, then sig is sent to every process except for the first one, from higher numbers in the proc table to lower. In this case, 0 is returned on success, or the last error condition from send_sig() is returned.

If pid is less than -1, then sig is sent to every process in the process group -pid. In this case, the number of processes the signal was sent to is returned, or a negative value for failure.  

RETURN VALUE

On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.  

ERRORS

EINVAL
An invalid signal is sent.
ESRCH
The pid or process group does not exist.
EPERM
The effective userid of the process calling kill() is not equal to the effective userid of pid, unless the superuser called kill().
 

BUGS

It is impossible to send a signal to task number one, the init process, for which it has not installed a signal handler. This is done to assure the system is not brought down accidentally.  

CONFORMING TO

SVID, AT&T, POSIX.1, X/OPEN, BSD 4.3  

SEE ALSO

_exit(2), exit(2), signal(2), signal(7)


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
RETURN VALUE
ERRORS
BUGS
CONFORMING TO
SEE ALSO

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