CSE 2431 Lab 3: UNIX Shell (Part II)
Group Size: 1, which means you must finish this lab assignment by yourself.
Goal: Getting familiar with signal handling.
Introduction: This lab assignment is a further step based on the UNIX shell interface you built in lab 1. This time, I want you to add a history feature into your UNIX shell. The history feature allows users to access up to ten most recently entered commands. These commands will be numbered starting at 1 and will continue to grow larger even past 10 (e.g., if the user has entered 35 commands, the ten most recent commands should be numbered 26 to 35).
A user will be able to list ten most recently entered commands upon pressing
– Ignoring the signal;
– Using the default signal handler; or
– Providing a separate signal-handling function.
Signals may be handled by first setting certain fields in the C structure struct sigaction and then passing this structure to the sigaction() function. Signals are defined in the include file /usr/include/sys/signal.h. For example, SIGINT represents the signal for terminating a program with the control sequence
Alternatively, a program may choose to set up its own signal-handling function by setting the sa_handler field in struct sigaction to the name of the function which will handle the signal and then invoking the sigaction() function, passing it (1) the signal we are setting up a handler for, and (2) a pointer to struct sigaction.
In Listing 1, we show a C program that uses the function handle_SIGINT() for handling the SIGINT signal. This function prints out the message “Caught Control C” and then invokes the exit() function to terminate the program.
Page 1 of 3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Listing 1: example.c
#include
#define BUFFER_SIZE 50
static char buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
/* the signal handler function */
void handle_SIGINT() { write(STDOUT_FILENO,buffer,strlen(buffer));
exit(0); // This is only for illustration purposes. You may want to // delete the exit(0) statement for this lab assignment.
}
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
/* set up the signal handler */ struct sigaction handler; handler.sa_handler = handle_SIGINT; sigaction(SIGINT, &handler, NULL);
strcpy(buffer,”Caught
/* wait for
while (1) ; return 0;
}
This program will run in the while(1) loop until the user enters the sequence
The signal-handling function should be declared above main() and because control can be transferred to this function at any point, no parameters may be passed to it. Therefore, any data that it must access in your program must be declared globally (i.e., at the top of the source file before your function declarations).
If the user enters
Page 2 of 3
Any command that is executed in this fashion should be echoed on the user’s screen and the command is also placed in the history buffer as the next command. (r x does not go into the history list; however, the actual command that it specifies does so.)
Submission: Put all your modifications in the file shell.c and submit that file in a .tar.gz or .zip file on Carmen using the commands described for Lab 0. At the beginning of the file shell.c, you need to tell the grader your full name, how to compile your file, and how to run your compiled program. Make sure your instructions work correctly.
Reference: To understand signals fully, you should read Section 8.5 of Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective and Chapter 10 of Advanced Programming in the UNIX® Environment, 3rd edition (https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b8557316~S7). The latter is an excellent book that provides valuable insights about C and systems programming. Chapter 10 tells you how to use sigaction() calls and how not to handle signals in your programs (with the underlying reasons). You may want to buy it as it’s only ∼$48.1
1Price listed on Amazon for new book on Aug. 13, 2019. W. Richard Stevens’ books are very clear. Page 3 of 3