Re: lynx-dev LYNX: catch ^C's --> "are you sure?" (excellent!)

[David Woolley]

> I've always expected ^C to stop a running program unconditionally, i.e.,
> stop the process and return to the shell.  Just about any program I can

You have never used vi, or less then.

> think of acts this way.  I don't understand what "return to the basic

Only badly written programs and non-interactive programs work like this.
Well written interactive programs return to the program's command
prompt from any long running operations, e.g. vi will abandon any very
long running search and replace.

If you want to forcibly terminate a program you use SIGQUIT, which will
produce a core dump, if the system permits it, which is what you should
normally want if the program cannot be stopped by normal means.

> command mode without losing state" means with regard to Lynx.

Losing state means forgetting the visited sites, forgetting the
stack of sites, forgetting 

> the same time) _by accident_.  If it's so easy to mistakenly hit ^C by

I do it quite often, although sometimes it's actually control-\, for 
SIGQUIT that I probably hit.

> ^G also seems fairly common amongst programs that I use regularly, with the
> meaning to cancel the immediate action and return to the previous mode.

I've never seen that on any other program (DOS or Unix), and the OS
doesn't provide good support for it (i.e. doesn't generate a signal
for it).

> Lynx's handling seems to be normal in this respect.  ^G is handled within
> the application, and no signal should be sent to the shell.

Normally configured shells ignore SIGINT, relying on return codes from
terminated programs.

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