Coming back to life after Segmentation Violation

Question

Is it possible to restore the normal execution flow of a C program, after the Segmentation Fault error?

struct A {
    int x;
};
A* a = 0;

a->x = 123; /         


        

Answer 1

You can catch segmentation faults using a signal handler, and decide to continue the excecution of the program (at your own risks).

The signal name is SIGSEGV.

You will have to use the sigaction() function, from the signal.h header.

Basically, it works the following way:

struct sigaction sa1;
struct sigaction sa2;

sa1.sa_handler = your_handler_func;
sa1.sa_flags   = 0;
sigemptyset( &sa1.sa_mask );

sigaction( SIGSEGV, &sa1, &sa2 );

Here's the prototype of the handler function:

void your_handler_func( int id );

As you can see, you don't need to return. The program's execution will continue, unless you decide to stop it by yourself from the handler.