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document updated 14 years ago, on Jan 9, 2010

Perl's behavior before v5.8 is referred to as "unsafe signals" or "instant signals", and the behavior from v5.8 on is referred to as "safe signals" or "deferred signals".

The behavior differences can be complicated and confusing.

official documentation
CPAN modules
- POSIX::sigaction() — this forces unsafe signalling behavior
  - POSIX::SigAction — an object wrapper to sigaction()
- Perl::Unsafe::Signals
- Sys::SigAction
  - dbd-oracle-timeout.pod — lengthy writeup detailing the problems and possible solutions
articles / significant blog posts / etc
- Safe signals in Perl / The new gotcha [The Register]
  - the author's updated copy on their own website