How to write a signal handler(like in C) in Java?

[liang gu]

In my Java application, I need to capture the CTRL+C signal. I know that in the C language, I can write a Signal handler to do this task. Does anybody know how to do this in JAVA? Thanks in advance.

[Gregg Bolinger]

Is this a GUI based application or a console application? If it is GUI based, just use a KeyEvent and KeyListener and catch it that way. Let me know what type of app and I can explain in more detail.

[liang gu]

It is a backend server application invoked from a UNIX command prompt like in the following:
/home/myaccount> Java myApplication
GUI is NOT involved in this server application.
Basically I want to change the default behaviour(kill the application) when CTRL+C is pressed from the command prompt, or 'kill pid' UNIX command is issued to the kill the process. I need to do quite some cleanup work(possibly create a new thread to do the cleanup) before the application exits.

[raj madhuram]

You need to catch SIGINT. I found the following on the net:
http://www.stanford.edu/~mgritter/java-SIGINT.html
http://www.interstice.com/~kevinh/projects/javasignals/
They use JNI and only work on unix. Let me know if you come across any Windoz version.
regards,
Raj

[David Weitzman]

You can use a shutdown handler -- but a shutdown handler than just keeps things running might possibly cause the virtual machine to get mad.