/plushcap/analysis/cloudflare/why-is-there-a-v-in-sigsegv-segmentation-fault

Why is there a "V" in SIGSEGV Segmentation Fault?

What's this blog post about?

Marek Majkowski, a programmer working on a bug-free C program, experienced a "Segmentation Fault" error when running his code. He initially wondered about the origin of the "V" in the signal name SIGSEGV and whether it was a mistake or an ancient reference to a "Segmentation Vault." David Wragg explained that the signal stands for "Segmentation Violation," which is related to memory segmentation errors from older computer systems. Further investigation by Martin Levy revealed that the original signal name was SIGSEG, but it was later renamed to SIGSEGV in both userspace and kernel side around 1980. Majkowski fixed his code crash by catching and handling the SIGSEGV signal, preventing future crashes.

Company
Cloudflare

Date published
June 18, 2020

Author(s)
Marek Majkowski, David Wragg

Word count
485

Hacker News points
222

Language
English


By Matt Makai. 2021-2024.