[New-bugs-announce] [issue45643] SIGSTKFLT is missing from the signals module on Linux

[Gareth Rees]

New submission from Gareth Rees <gdr at garethrees.org>:

BACKGROUND

On Linux, "man 7 signal" includes SIGSTKFLT in its table of "various other signals":

    Signal     Value   Action  Comment
    ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    SIGSTKFLT  -,16,-   Term   Stack fault on coprocessor (unused)

Here "-,16,-" means that the signal is defined with the value 16 on x86 and ARM but not on Alpha, SPARC or MIPS. I believe that the intention was to use SIGSTKFLT for stack faults on the x87 math coprocessor, but this was either removed or never implemented, so that the signal is defined in /usr/include/signal.h but not used by the Linux kernel.


USE CASE

SIGSTKFLT is one of a handful of signals that are not used by the kernel, so that user-space programs are free to use it for their own purposes, for example for inter-thread or inter-process pre-emptive communication.

Accordingly, it would be nice if the name SIGSTKFLT were available in the Python signal module on the platforms where the signal is available, for use and reporting in these cases.

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 405174
nosy: gdr at garethrees.org
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: SIGSTKFLT is missing from the signals module on Linux
type: enhancement
versions: Python 3.11

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue45643>
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