beckon

A Clojure library to handle POSIX signals in JVM applications. It does the low-level work and gives you a simple interface to the signal handlers.

Stack

Installation

Use beckon by default. It runs on JDK 8+ with no extra JVM flags. Use beckon-ffm only if you want the experimental Foreign Function & Memory backend on JDK 22+.

Leiningen (project.clj):

[net.clojars.savya/beckon "0.6.0"]

Clojure CLI (deps.edn):

net.clojars.savya/beckon {:mvn/version "0.6.0"}

beckon runs on JDK 8 or later with no extra JVM flags. It wraps sun.misc.Signal, which stays available through the jdk.unsupported module on current JDKs. Thus you do not need --add-exports or --add-opens.

Quick-start

To catch SIGINT and print a message when someone interrupts the process, start your Emacs nREPL with nrepl-jack-in or a similar command. Then write the following:

(require 'beckon)

(let [print-function (fn [] (println "Hahah, nothing can stop me!"))]
  (beckon/add-handler! "INT" print-function))

That is all. To check that this works, use the raise! function, which raises a POSIX signal to the VM:

(beckon/raise! "INT")
; prints nothing

Why did raise! print nothing? By default the JVM receives a signal on a maximum-priority signal thread, and beckon runs callbacks there synchronously. Thus the output does not show in the nREPL window. Look in the *nrepl-server* buffer to see the message. See Dispatch policies if callbacks must not run on that thread.

By default, signals such as SIGTERM and SIGINT terminate the running VM. Be careful. You can experiment with them in a REPL:

(beckon/raise! "TERM")
; NB: This will terminate nREPL.

If the signal handling is in a bad state, you can go back to the default:

(beckon/reinit! "INT")
; Reinitializes the SIGINT signal handler.
(beckon/raise! "INT")
; NB: This will terminate your JVM process.

That is all you need to know to work with beckon.

Usage

beckon has 17 core functions: signal-atom, add-handler!, remove-handler!, clear-handlers!, raise!, reinit!, reinit-all!, current-handler, default-handler!, ignored-handler!, chain-handler!, restore-handler!, dispatch-policy, set-dispatch-policy!, serial-policy, parallel-policy, and bounded-policy. Usually you need only add-handler! and remove-handler! in a production system. The other functions help you to inspect or reset signal handling.

signal-atom

signal-atom is the core of this library. It uses atoms to set up signal handlers. It returns an atom. The atom has a validator function, so the only legal values are Seqable collections in which every element is Runnable. All Clojure functions implement Runnable, but only a function that takes zero arguments works as a Runnable.

beckon requires a Seqable of Runnable in the atom, because this lets you add more than one independent signal handler to a single signal. beckon runs the signal handlers in sequence. If a function throws an exception, beckon stops the signal handling and throws no exception. If a function throws an error, the whole signal handling crashes. You can use this behavior to get conditional dispatch of functions. For example:

(reset! (beckon/signal-atom "INT")
        [(fn [] (println "foo"))
         (fn [] (println "bar") (throw (Exception.)))
         (fn [] (println "We'll never see this"))])

Will only print foo and bar.

This is not a good way to do dispatch. Put this logic in the functions when possible.

beckon updates the signal handler when the atom changes, but a change to the signal handler does not update the atom. If you use beckon, do not also set signal handling through another library or through the native Java interface.

add-handler!, remove-handler! and clear-handlers!

Use these functions to compose handlers from independent components without replacing the entire collection:

(def cleanup (fn [] (println "cleaning up")))
(beckon/add-handler! "INT" cleanup)
(beckon/remove-handler! "INT" cleanup)
(beckon/clear-handlers! "INT")

Each operation updates the signal atom with swap!, so concurrent additions and removals are atomic. This avoids the lost updates possible with the read-then-reset! pattern, where two components can each read the same old collection and the later reset! can overwrite the earlier registration. remove-handler! matches the handler by reference identity.

Signal dispositions

For interoperability with other JVM signal users, beckon also exposes the process-wide disposition directly. current-handler returns the exact pre-existing sun.misc.SignalHandler; default-handler! and ignored-handler! install SIG_DFL and SIG_IGN; and chain-handler! invokes the supplied JVM handler after beckon's handlers. restore-handler! returns the signal to the exact disposition saved before beckon's first disposition change.

These operations are process-wide, not thread-local. They reject SIGUSR2, which HotSpot uses internally for thread suspension, to avoid destabilizing the JVM. Use chain-handler! with a preserved JVM handler when integrating with a signal already owned by another JVM component.

raise!

raise! sends a signal of the type given as input. For example, (beckon/raise! "INT") has the same effect as a SIGINT signal sent to the JVM process. Use it to check that your signal handlers work as intended.

reinit! and reinit-all!

reinit! and reinit-all! reset the signal handlers to their state when the JVM started. reinit! takes one argument, the signal to reset. reinit-all! takes no argument and resets every signal.

Dispatch policies

Callbacks run synchronously on the JVM signal thread by default. Configure an executor-backed policy when callbacks can block or take meaningful time:

(def executor (java.util.concurrent.Executors/newFixedThreadPool 4))
(beckon/set-dispatch-policy! (beckon/serial-policy executor))

The policy applies to future deliveries; callbacks already submitted continue under their original policy. beckon does not shut down a caller-supplied executor.

Policy	Ordering and overlap	Overload behavior
:synchronous	Runs callbacks in collection order on the signal thread; callbacks for a signal cannot overlap.	No queue; the signal thread runs the callback directly. This is the default.
(serial-policy executor)	Queues one delivery at a time per signal. Deliveries for the same signal are ordered and never overlap. Different signals may run in parallel.	Uses the executor's normal execute behavior; a rejected submission is propagated to the signal thread.
(parallel-policy executor)	Submits each callback independently. Callbacks for the same signal may overlap; no callback ordering is guaranteed.	Uses the executor's normal execute behavior; a rejection is propagated to the signal thread.
(bounded-policy executor)	Same overlap and ordering behavior as parallel dispatch.	Non-blocking. If execute rejects because the caller's bounded queue is full (or the executor is shut down), that callback is dropped. Other callbacks and later deliveries continue.

For bounded dispatch, configure the supplied executor with the capacity and thread count you want, for example a ThreadPoolExecutor with an ArrayBlockingQueue. A bounded policy never waits for queue space and therefore does not put application backpressure on the JVM signal thread.

In asynchronous policies, an Exception from one callback does not cancel other callbacks that were submitted for the same delivery. As with the historical synchronous behavior, Error is not caught by beckon.

How is a signal handled?

When the JVM receives a signal, it starts a new thread at Thread.MAX_PRIORITY. With the default policy, beckon runs the callbacks on that thread. Executor-backed policies move callback work to the supplied executor, while the signal thread only performs the dispatch operation.

"FAQ"

This list gives the common problems with this library. If it does not help you, add a new issue.

Q: My infinite sequence does not work with this library. Why?
A: For speed, beckon puts the collection of functions into a Java array. An infinite sequence does not fit in a Java array.

Q: Why does the collection of functions accept keywords, symbols, and other values that are clearly not functions?
A: Keywords, symbols and some persistent collections implement the IFn interface in Clojure, and thus they also implement Runnable. They implement Runnable, but they cannot return a value of use. A later version will correct this.

Signal backends

By default beckon uses sun.misc.Signal, which works on JDK 8+ with no extra JVM flags. The JDK marks that API "internal proprietary", so beckon keeps all use of it behind a small internal SignalBackend seam. An alternative backend can replace it if necessary.

An experimental alternative uses the Foreign Function & Memory API (JDK 22+). It ships as a separate package, beckon-ffm (Linux signalfd, macOS/BSD kqueue). Add it with beckon:

[net.clojars.savya/beckon "0.6.0"]
[net.clojars.savya/beckon-ffm "0.1.7"]

Then start the JVM with -Dbeckon.signal.backend=ffm --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED to select it. It is a separate package because it needs JDK 22+, but this core jar targets JDK 8. sun.misc stays the default.

License

Copyright © 2013 Jean Niklas L'orange.

Maintenance fork (2026) by Savyasachi, original: https://github.com/hyPiRion/beckon. Distributed under the Eclipse Public License 1.0, preserving the original license.

Distributed under the Eclipse Public License, the same as Clojure.