Hands-On System Programming with Linux

The siginfo_t structure

When you use the SA_SIGINFO signal flag and a trapped signal occurs, the kernel populates a data structure: the siginfo_t structure.

The siginfo_t structure definition (slightly simplified; there is some #if wrapping around the first few members which we need not worry about here) is shown next(It's in the header /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/bits/types/siginfo_t.h on Ubuntu and /usr/include/bits/types/siginfo_t.h on a Fedora box):

typedef struct {    int si_signo; /* Signal number. */    int si_code;      int si_errno; /* If non-zero, an errno value associated with           this signal, as defined in <errno.h>. */    union    {         int _pad[__SI_PAD_SIZE];        /* kill(). */         struct         {             __pid_t si_pid; /* Sending process ID. */ __uid_t si_uid; /* Real ...