Below I quote a simple implementation in C that you can use in your applications for the management of software signals in POSIX operating systems (such as the GNU/Linux). Of course, this implementation comes from a personal project of the past, especially where I grappled with system programming. You can modify this implementation to work best with your needs.
Source code of the implementation:
/*
* signals_handling.c -- signals handling support.
*
* Copyright (C) 2007 Efstathios Chatzikyriakidis (stathis.chatzikyriakidis@gmail.com)
*
* This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
* it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
* the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
* (at your option) any later version.
*
* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
* but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
* MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
* GNU General Public License for more details.
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
*/
/* standard libraries' includes. */
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <syslog.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <signal.h>
/* function prototypes. */
static void term_handler (const int sig);
static void chld_handler (const int sig);
static void signals_handler (const int sig);
void signals_support (const int state);
/* the following function cleans up all the zombie
processes each time is called. is a handler for
the `SIGCHLD' signal. */
static void
chld_handler (const int sig) {
/* are used for cleaning up zombies. */
int status;
pid_t pid;
/* clean up all zombie processes. */
while ((pid = waitpid (-1, &status, WNOHANG)) > 0);
/* status variables may be used in future. */
}
/* the following function is `SIGTERM' signal's handler. */
static void
term_handler (const int sig) {
/* log informative message. */
syslog (LOG_INFO, "termination signal found.");
/* terminate the program. */
exit (EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* the following function is called when a new
fresh signal occures. then calls a specific
handler depending for that signal. */
static void
signals_handler (const int sig) {
switch (sig) {
case SIGTERM:
term_handler (sig);
break;
case SIGCHLD:
chld_handler (sig);
break;
default: /* for all the other signals. */
syslog (LOG_INFO, "signal found: `%d'.", sig);
break;
}
}
/* the following function enables or
disables signals handling support. */
void
signals_support (const int state) {
/* is used for handling the signals. */
register int i;
/* enable signals handler. */
if (state)
for (i = SIGHUP; i <= SIGTERM; i++)
signal (i, signals_handler);
/* disable signals handler. */
if (!state)
for (i = SIGHUP; i <= SIGTERM; i++)
signal (i, SIG_IGN);
}


