Handle signals in the Java Virtual Machine

Question

Is it possible to handle POSIX signals within the Java Virtual Machine?

At least SIGINT and SIGKILL should be quite platform independent.

Answer 1

Perhaps Runtime#addShutdownHook ?

Answer 2

The JVM responds to signals on its own. Some will cause the JVM to shutdown gracefully, which includes running shutdown hooks. Other signals will cause the JVM to abort without running shutdown hooks.

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/Runtime.html#addShutdownHook(java.lang.Thread)

I don't think the JDK provides an official way to handle signals within your Java application. However, I did find the link below, which describes using some undocumented sun.misc.Signal class to do exactly that. The article dates from 2002 and uses JDK 1.3.1, but I've confirmed that the sun.misc.Signal class still exists in JDK 1.6.0.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/i-signalhandling/