Signal handlers

[Rahul Gandhi]

Hey!

I am still a newbie to kernel development. I was reading about signals and
signal handlers. The signal function describe as follows:

sighandler_t *signal* (int signum, sighandler_t action)

As per my understanding, when the signal denoted by signum occurs/is
raised, the action is taken which can be either SIG_DFL, SIG_IGN or a
function/handler. What i don't understand is, when we write for
example signal(SIGPROF,
handler); isn't this supposed to be asynchronous? however the code is
executed sequentially. So, when this function is encountered, it is
executed and when a signal is raised, how does it know what to do?

This might sound foolish, bear with me.

Thanks
Rahul Gandhi
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