how to die

i noticed that there is a death package in npm. however it did not really do what i wanted. i just wanted a mapping between the various signal names and their integer values. as it happens, this is not as easy as it sounds, because signals differ between ATT and BSD, as well as between e.g., SPARC and MIPS.

so while i don't personally know anybody writing javascript on IRIX, It's rude to release software that is so hardware- or kernel-centric as to ignore our fellow programmers on different Unixes.

accordingly, i wrote this package. it converts between signal names and numbers on HP, SPARC, MIPS, i386 (and by extension x64), and PowerPC/POWER. it also gives you a non-binding description of what would happen (or should happen; you can trap SIGSEGV and do nothing, if you like), and a description of what the signal actually means.

note that this is pretty cryptic and some of these signals go waaaaaay way back to when we had stone keyboards and we all used teletypes. it may not make sense in the context of, say, a modern linux.

interface

var htd = require( 'htd' );
var kill = htd.get( 9 );
var segv = htd.get( 'SIGSEGV' );
var term = htd.get( 'TERM' );

if you are one of those brave souls who is using a non-i386 platform, you may set htd.mode to one of ppc, sh, alpha, sparc, or mips. the return values from htd.get() will be appropriate to your platform/unix. no guarantees are provided in terms of children on your lawn, however.

the resultant object will have the methods numeric, action, and signal. these are not very cleverly named and do what you would expect.

if you would like ALL THE SIGNALS, htd.signals is the structure, exported. be advised it contains all the numerics. look at the source to see what is what.

license

well, this is tricky because it is cobbled together from header files from ancient unixes and probably includes verbatim words from obscure HP or Berkeley engineers. i am not certain it can be 'copyrighted' by anyone and is without question a derivative work.

this having been said, it was written by an employee of the united states government, and is not subject to copyright; it is hereby released into the public domain.

for purposes of attribution (though you really shouldn't), the author is jane arc, @janearc — jane@cpan.org.🐙👾