UNIX operating systems use a signal to report an exceptional situation to a process. Some signals report synchronous events, such as references to an invalid address. Other signals report asynchronous events, such as the disconnection of a phone line.
You can install a handler function to specify an action to be taken when a signal occurs. When the signal occurs, the operating system executes the handler function.
Use Sybase-provided calls to install signal handlers. If you use operating system calls to install signal handlers, this interferes with the internal workings of the Sybase libraries.
